Yes, I know one doesn’t even want to be cured of one’s pride because it gives pleasure. But the pleasure of pride is like the pleasure of scratching. If there is an itch, one does want to scratch: but it is much nicer to have neither the itch nor the scratch. As long as we have the itch of self-regard we shall want the pleasure of self-approval; but the happiest moments are those when we forget our precious selves and have neither; but then, have everything else (God, our fellow-humans, animals, the garden, and the sky) instead.
–C. S. Lewis, in a letter, February 18, 1954; Yours, Jack: Spiritual Direction from C. S. Lewis, 2008
———————————
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.
——————————–
Pride is spiritual cancer. It eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.
———————————
As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
*********************************************
Matthew 23:12 — (Jesus said), “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Romans 12:3 — For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.
Proverbs 16:18 — Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
*********************************************
Eternal God, let this mind be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; that as he from his lofty position stooped to death on a cross, so we in our lowliness may humble ourselves, believing, obeying, living, and dying, for his name’s sake. Amen.
–Christina Rossetti
Related Posts
