When we sift our thoughts through God’s love and practice self-awareness, pride has nowhere to hide.
We are quick to point fingers and proclaim, “Pride cometh before the fall!” (our often hasty, not-exactly-correct quotation of Proverbs 16:18).
But how often are we whispering this truth to ourselves, telling those inner, most selfish parts of our being to cease because someone or something else is more important? How often do we quiet our souls long enough to recognize where we might be at fault for things? I’d say we rarely, if ever, consider our own hearts and the ways pride has threatened our relationships. As with the splinter (Matthew 7:3-5), the tiniest bit of pridefulness in another's eye takes center stage, which lets us forget, if only for a bit, that our own pride is a heavy log pinning our worth to the devastating lies we elevate ourselves with.
An Easy Friend
Pride is tricky, but he's quite the ego-booster. That's what makes him so easy to befriend. He always makes a great first impression, so, on the surface, he appears quite likable. He’s quick to keep you in the spotlight. In fact, he comes off so humble that he doesn’t want to tell you his name. No, it's all about you because it should be all about you. You deserve it, right? Subtlety is his job, and he does it well—too well.
Pride is much quieter and more sneaky than boastfulness, so once you've let him in your inner circle, in your heart and mind, he continues flattering you with just enough fanfare that it seems he’s only pointing out the obvious:
Of course, you alone are the reason this household stays afloat. You’re the only one who knows the name of the kids’ pediatrician, whose soccer practice is where, and when you’re out of toilet paper. You make all the lunches, clean up all the messes, and are left to balance sensory overload with anything else that must be done. Meanwhile, this man you married comes home from work just to throw his muddy boots on the floor, leave a plate of crumbs on the couch, and grumble all the way to bedtime. It’s not nagging or instigating an argument if you call out who’s pulling more weight around here. Facts are facts. You deserve your thanks.
Of course, you are beautiful. Your oh-so-platonic relationship with your coworker hasn’t crossed a line simply because he doesn’t mind calling out how attractive you are. You’ve been busting your tail at the gym; you’ve been dedicated to a strict diet. You’ve done the work, so at least somebody is celebrating you. (It’s not like your husband pays you attention anyway…)
Pride’s words plant just enough ego, just enough realism, in your heart to take root and grow into something diabolical, but he sneaks off before anything poisonous sprouts. He’s not going to be closely associated with your downfall. He can’t afford to be blamed because he still has plenty more reasons to circle back and sow even more discord into your heart. He has too much fun destroying your relationships with others, particularly with your spouse, to be caught with his hand in this debilitating cookie jar.
Even worse, he detonated the bomb in your soul, but you’ll be the only one left to pick up the broken pieces—even the ones that won’t ever fit back together.
Some friend this pride guy is, huh?
I encourage you to consider the ominous way pride stealthily plants himself deep in your heart and mind. He plays a little game most of us are familiar and comfortable with, but if we recognize his moves, we can uproot him before he chokes our most sacred relationships.
The Familiar Game
Have you ever played the game Two Truths and a Lie? Players take turns going around the circle and sharing three “facts”—except one of them isn’t a fact. It’s a lie. Everyone else then shares which fact they think is the lie.
Players use all their knowledge about that person to guess which statement couldn’t possibly be true. In theory, if you know a person well, if you’ve been friends for a while and have a good idea of their personality, it’s harder for them to pull off the lie. That’s the only way to “strategize” while playing this guessing game.
That’s why pride is often a winner. He befriends you, he gets to know you intimately—in ways you might not even fully know yourself. He recognizes your triggers, your insecurities, and your deepest desires, and he exploits them. He’s great at presenting you with a list of “truths” that aren’t always fact.
He knows you desire to be seen, to be recognized for the love you pour out in behind-the-scenes ways. He takes this information and plays his own cruel version of Two Truths and a Lie:
Yes, you cook and clean and provide for your family so well.
Yes, you are exhausted after a long day, and rightfully so.
Yes, carrying the mental and emotional load of the family gives you the right to remind your husband that he does not.
He’s so good at presenting the healthy facts first, so it’s easy for him to sneak the lies where you feel most unfulfilled. He uses your longing and need for acceptance to force a deeper wedge between you and your spouse who could, to a God-ordained degree, provide that acceptance and human intimacy you need.
The Way to Win
The only way to win at this game is to recognize pride’s lies for what they are—and the sooner, the better. 2 Corinthians 10:5 offers this strategy, “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
We only listen to and are deceived by the lies that we allow space in our minds. We are humans, which means we will have some vile, wild thoughts. (I have Intrusive Thought Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder—trust me, I know.) But what matters is what we do with those initial thoughts. If a thought flies through our mind in anger, we must weigh it against whatever is true and right and lovely (Philippians 4:8), but we must also recognize our fickle emotions that feed pride’s lies to begin with.
When a thought isn’t rooted in love or is subject to anything from sadness to loneliness to anger or depression, we must uproot it, show it the door, and cease to replay it.
When we sift our thoughts through God’s love and practice self-awareness, pride has nowhere to hide. God’s love will call him into the light, where he has no choice but to flee, and our self-awareness will call us to personal conviction where we hold no space for conversation with anyone or anything but God.
Is this easy? No. If it was easy, people wouldn’t make a career out of offering marriage counseling. If this was easy, petty fights wouldn’t exist. Divorce wouldn’t be in our vocabulary. Love would be perfect.
But until the day Jesus rights all wrongs and love is made fully perfect in each of us, let’s be aware of the game pride plays so when it’s your turn, you can call out the lies, dismantle their destruction, and have victory in your marriage.
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/jeffbergen
