The Bible is clear. It says nothing good about pride. The book of Proverbs alone has seven verses about the danger of pride, and the remainder of the Bible has about sixty other warnings that include the word pride. There are even more warnings that don't include the word, like Romans 12:3, which tells us, "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned."
American society drives the opposite message into us from the day we are born, actually even before we are born. We are told by parents, grandparents, and society that we are perfect and beautiful. We are told that we should always be proud of ourselves and that the worst thing we can feel is guilt or shame. These t-shirts send an interesting message.
I'm sorry I digressed, but that shirt was astounding, and you can't be surprised by tangents when the name of the blog is On the Rabbit Trail. The point of this was to examine the fact that we are steeped in a culture that tells us only to feel proud of ourselves all the time. Meanwhile, we know our own hearts and the darkness within them. If we talk about sin, we are encouraged not to be judgemental or shame anyone, including ourselves. Am I the only one who finds this confusing?
I'm 41 years old and have been in Bible preaching churches my entire life. If I'm confused by conflicting messages about pride, it isn't surprising that my middle school students are too.
A few years ago, I taught a young lady who had particular difficulty with the concept of pride. She was highly intelligent and made excellent grades, but her parents made her feel stupid. If she made anything less than a 98% on a test, she cried and screamed so loudly that she could be heard from several rooms away, yelling about stupid and worthless she was. Imagine what it must have been like to believe that the range between perfection and worthless was only two percent. One day she asked me if I thought I was smart. I told her that, while I am by no means a genius, I do believe have above average intelligence. I am able to absorb information and remember things I hear and read; I am pretty good at making connections between material. I would never have been qualified for rocket science or brain surgery, but I do qualify as above average. She was horrified. She said, "Do you feel bad saying that?" Before I could answer, she said, "I mean, isn't that pride?" A question like that should make you examine yourself, so I gave it some thought before answering. I don't think I have pride when it comes to my scholastic abilities, but I don't believe that I should pretend not to have the gifts that God gave me. That would be like an artist refusing to sell paintings or a musician refusing to play in front of people.
If God has given you something, it cannot be honoring to Him to pretend that he didn't. I think it is important to acknowledge that it was, in fact, a gift. That means having the humility to know that you did not earn it. God gave you raw abilities as well as the privileges with which you developed those abilities. Privilege is another word we have a tricky relationship with. In fact, some of you probably reacted with reflexive defensiveness when you read it, thinking "I worked hard for everything I have." That's partially true, but your work ethic was probably a result of the environment in which God placed you. I worked very hard for my grades and my degree, but I know that this was at least partially because God gave me parents who valued hard work, even made me repeat a job that wasn't done well. I was raised with a library card and access to the Wake County Public Library system. I recently finished reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, in which a boy makes a windmill to provide electricity to his home after being forced to drop out of school during a famine and using a book he checked out over and over again from his library, which had a total of three shelves of books. In discussions with 9th-grade students about this book, we all agreed that he made us feel guilty for taking our private school educations for granted.
Acknowledging that God placed you in the right place at the right time with the right people around you to help you develop the gifts he gave you will keep you "thinking of yourself more highly" than you ought. It means that you can acknowledge your gifts without falling into pride. Teaching students to do that in our culture is tricky, but modeling it shouldn't be.
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