A Battle Against The Pride of Life

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When God chooses someone else to implement your ideas, will you respond with such humility?

Bullseye! This question I encountered while reading my life application study Bible hit my pride of life. I've been desperate to find my worth in this world — family, colleagues, students, and friends. I desperately made myself relevant and of value to the people around me, but I failed terribly. Rejection after rejection, backstab after backstab, and loss after loss made me build my own dungeon of self-pity, bitterness, and resentment. I detached myself from people whom I can't find myself being valued and waged war against those whom I felt were stealing my "spotlight". I was battling with the pride of life and I was at the losing stance. Yet, in my desperation, God drew me close to Him. 

It took only a few weeks for me to realize how sinful I've been this year. I danced with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. I made a god of my imagination and left the God of the Bible. I have become like the prodigal son who left his father and went to a far country — wasting not just his inheritance but, above all, his life. But just as the prodigal son went home to his father after seeing how empty and vain life is apart from him, so I also went back to my Father after He opened my eyes and heart to see how meaningless and wasted my life is apart from Him. The fruit of the Spirit is starting to grow in me. I am still being chased, tempted even immediately right after I wake up in the morning, by the pride of life. January is just a week away and work resumes soon. I do not know how intense my battle against pride will be the moment I get back to work. But one thing is for sure, the battle belongs to the Lord. I cannot crush my pride, but my Father can! 

When God uses someone else to implement my ideas, it is by His power at work in me that I will be able to gladly accept His will. Humility isn't something I can work on for myself on my own. It is and will always be the fruit of the Spirit which God has given me. 

Even spiritual victories are all because of God. He alone can give it; I cannot have it through and by my own strength. 

And so I affirm with David that, "There is none like you, O LORD, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears (1 Chronicles 17: 20)."


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Photo by: Rev. Raggi A. Aungon, Choir Director of Valencia Baptist Church

Note: I asked permission to use this photo because, for me, sunrise brings hope every day it comes. This is one of the beautiful sunrise photographs I saw this week. 

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