Saturday - Third Week in Lent
C.S. Lewis called pride “the great sin.” In Mere Christianity Lewis wrote,
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites 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… it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.
If this sounds like exaggeration, it will help us to know that Lewis is not simply giving us his private opinion but summarizing the thinking of great saints through the ages. Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, and many others taught that pride was the ultimate root of sin. It is the devil’s most effective and destructive tool.
From the opening chapters of Genesis with the story of Adam and Eve with the serpent in the garden, we see how pride leads to an arrogance that sees one’s self as the standard of Truth, when, in reality, it is God who is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” The desire to lift up and exalt ourselves beyond our place as part of God’s creation lies at the heart of pride. As Eve, confused and deceived, considered the possibilities, her desire to become Godlike grew stronger. She began to look at the forbidden fruit in a way that differed from God’s viewpoint. Desire increased, giving rise to rationalization and a corresponding erosion of the will to resist and say no to something that was contrary to God’s will.
Chances are that most of us do not see pride in our lives. For while it is easy to see pride in others, it is difficult to see it in ourselves. As Lewis further observes, “there is no fault which makes a man [sic] more unpopular and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it in ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.”
William Law (an 18th Century Anglican priest and theologian) taught, “there can be no surer proof of a confirmed pride than a belief that one is sufficiently humble . . . if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, ‘How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?'”
To grow in the spiritual life, we need to examine ourselves to see just where this insidious attitude dwells. When we discover it within us, we need to take it to the Lord and lay it before the throne of grace. Do this, and many other of our more pesky sins may disappear.
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