Snapshot: Email Response

My brother-in-law shot me an email yesterday commenting a bit on "Mere Christianity," the famous Christian apologetic book penned by C.S. Lewis. He had just read the chapter on "The Great Sin," which according to Lewis is the sin of pride. My brother and I have discussed pride in the past, so the chapter sparked his interest and he sent a snippet of it over for me to read. I am in full agreement with Lewis on the issue of pride as the deadly of the deadly sins. Pride is the source of every other type of sin, and on which Lewis comments 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." I agree, minus the "except Christians," which I suppose is true if we weed out those only claiming to be Christians. But that is neither here nor there for now.

Upon re-reading this chapter on pride, I immediately was convicted to the core. Pride is a sin that I have always struggled with and one that God is addressing currently in my life to a large degree, and which prompted the following email response from me almost immediately. Before I post it here I would just like to throw out a disclaimer. I have wanted this blog, for the most part, to be a transparent and genuine reflection of my spiritual journey and not just a commentary on books or acquired theological knowledge. That being said, the following response is as pure and honest as it comes. I never intended for it to become fodder for this blog when I wrote it, but upon reflecting more on my pride after the fact I felt it was a good "snapshot" of where I am, hence the blog title. You could almost say I'm proud of it, which would be ironic, huh? That is certainly possible. At any rate here ya go...forgive the coarse language:

"Pride is my absolute mortal enemy - especially as a seminarian who is acquiring all this knowledge all while ignoring the point of it. I flat out think I'm better than people on most days and am constantly being destroyed over it. It is a battle I fight everyday in my head. It is the catch 22 of living in a nation that celebrates competition more than anything else. I hate arrogant people so much that I want to beat them at whatever causes them to be arrogant, thus accentuating my arrogance twice as much as theirs. It destroys everything in its wake; from my Christian witness to my relationship with my girlfriend and other people. Some days the only thing I can cling to is the fact that through grace I'm constantly being broken down - often painfully - and despite the fact that I would have been one of the assholes who happily nailed Jesus to the cross he still constantly wants me back. This is where Christianity becomes more pragmatic and less "other worldly." It allows for people who are broken to be gracefully put back together knowing that they are forgiven and giving them the ability to move back into a relationship with God.

We are working our way through the prophets right now and this verse just popped out at me, which is a basic summary of man's duty:

"He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

I'm thoroughly convinced of the truth of Christianity, but that often presents its own catch 22 - because in that certainty there is temptation to be prideful in "being right." I agree with Lewis that there are millions of "Christians" whom Christ will say, "I never knew you." My goal now is to just accept the grace for where I currently stand (as a pride-ridden butthole) and be discipled toward Christ's image and truly be broken and admit fault.

Mere Christianity is a great read. I really want to get some of the other books in the series like "A Grief Observed" and "The Problem with Pain." I heard the former is tough because its about when he lost his wife.

Ok I'm done."

It is amazing the way God works. Again tonight we talked about pride in class while working through Obadiah, although the theme was not just God's displeasure with individual pride, but the pride of nations as well. It is amazing how quickly we may be forgetting that in America. As we talked about Obadiah, who was speaking his oracle against the Edomites, our professor happily reminded us that just when you think you are all that...you ain't:

"The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, 'Who can bring me down to the ground?' Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down," declares the Lord. Obadiah 1:3-4

Hopefully I can keep that in mind for myself as well.