In the grip of pride?

The conversation bordered on the bizarre as the person insisted that his whole family was his enemy. It is a sad scenario in which he has become increasingly committed to his perceptions, no matter who tries to help him grasp the realities of his situation. This person is not mentally ill, functions well in his place of work, but in this one area - he has become willfully blind to the truth. His mind is made up. As he sees it, he is being persecuted - and it is his 'truth.' Have you ever tried to dialogue with someone who is committed to their version of the 'facts,' who is completely unwilling to consider the possibility that they could be getting it wrong? It is frustrating, to say the least.

When we close our mind on a subject, we begin to interpret all the data that flows our way in a way that supports our conclusions. The results can sometimes be hilarious and often tragic! I have a friend who refuses to believe that American astronauts ever walked on the moon. With a straight face, he'll tell you that all the videos and pictures from the moon explorations were fabricated by the government. His mind is closed! One of the more loony conspiracy theories that keeps making its way around these days is that the US Government brought down the World Trade Center on 9/11! The fringe who propagates that idea is committed to it despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So, are you in the grip of a closed mind (an expression of pride), unwilling and/or unable to see the facts and deal with the truth?
If you are, it is unlikely you will admit it! And so the delusions deepen.

As a Christian Believer, I personally walk the line between two competing ideals -
being committed to the Truth of Christ and the Holy Scripture, and
remaining open to instruction that allows for correction.

From the Scriptures, I learn facts that are unchanging - God is the Creator; Jesus Christ is the Savior; the Holy Spirit is present, at work in the world now. The Gospels inform me that love of God and fellow man are God's basic requirement of all people, at all times, in every place. I am a committed Christian who believes in the exclusive Truth claim made by Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6, NKJV)

But I am wary of pride that would keep me from hearing the correcting voices that would keep me from slipping into a world of illusions born of my own twisted understandings of the 'facts.' There are no more frightening people in the world to me than those who proudly announce - "We are the 'true' people of God, for we possess 'all' the truth." When the sin of pride is wedded to the power of 'truth' - the results are terrifying! That is one reason I am so reluctant to ever make the claim that "God told me to tell you...." It is much different to say, "I believe that the Lord wants me to share this with you." The second statement allows for the real possibility that the 'prophet' got it wrong! Pride is a singular sin that feeds itself and keeps us from God and the Truth, regardless of our religiosity or lack thereof. Pride is a form of idolatry, a love of self that excludes God and good.

C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity, writes this about pride.

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves.. . . There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

Later in the same chapter, he writes -

"How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellowmen.

I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good --above all, that we are better than someone else -- I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether."

Choose the discipline of service, which will open pathways for the Spirit to work humility into your character. Choose to associate with people unlike yourself. Listen, really listen, to those with whom you differ. Pray for the grace of humility, and when God lets life disappoint you, allow Him to use it to accomplish His work of humiliation.

Here's a word from the Word to ponder today - "Jesus called a small child over to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I assure you, unless you turn from your sins and become as little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 18:2-4, NLT)