By: Zeke

Have you ever found yourself halfway through a situation and stopped to realize you have no idea what you are doing? Whether it be a homework assignment, a conversation, a task, or something you are doing with your friends; we all have had times where we say we know how or we agree to do something when we really don’t have any idea how. Sometimes it works out and we get it figured out along the way. Other times though, we realize that we are in too deep and we need someone to bail us out.

There are many reasons that we end up putting ourselves in these situations. Sometimes we want to look cool, we want to feel smart or knowledgeable, or we are just ashamed that we didn’t know how.

A silly example of this in my life is how to take care of and style my hair. I was never really taught how to do it, and when I got to be a teenager I realized my hair looked completely awful. I essentially did nothing with it but comb it down so it didn’t stick up. It looked like I had a bowl plastered onto my head. For years I just accepted that my hair was bad and just rolled with it even though I hated it. I never asked anyone for help or for what they thought might actually look good because I was ashamed that I didn’t know how to do it. I felt like at 14 I should know how and if I asked, people would make fun of me for not knowing. All the while my hair was still awful and people just made fun of me anyway because it was very clear I didn’t know how.

This example is pretty lighthearted and inconsequential, but it’s a good indication of where my head was at. I was more focused on looking like I knew how and more focused on appearing like I had it all together than actually having it all together.

The Bible talks at length about the idea of pride and humility. These two qualities are opposites. You cannot have humility while being prideful. Pride is one of the most common sins and is the one that almost everyone does without even knowing they are doing it. Pride is saying that I know best and whatever I think is right is what is right. Obviously, this is pretty counterintuitive to what God has called us to. God calls us to trust him and to follow what he says is best. Trusting that he knows better than us. Pride is what Satan used to tempt Adam and Eve in the garden. He appealed to Adam and Eve’s desire to know everything and to be like God. 

Humility then is the antithesis of pride. Humility is acknowledging our position. We are not God and we don’t know what God knows. It means submitting to his rule and following him. Humility in a way is what God used to save humanity by sending Jesus. We have to have the humility to say we don’t know best and that we cannot make it to heaven on our own. We need Jesus in order to get there. God also calls us not just to be humble with him, but also with others around us. We are called to not be prideful with one another and to treat each other with respect.

Back to my example, I may not have recognized it at the time, but my unwillingness to ask for help with my hair, while small, was pride. I was unwilling to admit to others that I didn’t know. I wanted people to look at me and think that I had it all figured out and that I could do it myself.

Read 1 Peter 5:5-6

Question: What does this say about pride and humility? How can this apply to you?

Weekly Challenge:

• Identify three areas in your life that you have allowed pride in or you have not been humble in.
• Take the action needed to overcome that pride
• Share the area and what you did to overcome it

This could be similar to my example as something you don’t know how to do and are too ashamed to ask. So the action for this would be to ask someone how to do better and then to do that.

Or it could be something like not understanding something you think you should know about God, life, christianity, or really any topic.

If you need help identifying an area, another thought to help is that control is just another form of pride. So any area you feel like you need to be in control of (over God) would be something you could work on.