I walked into the living room the other morning and heard someone speaking on the news. I don't even remember who it was or what he was talking about, but I found him to be obnoxiously arrogant. “That guy is full of pride,” I said. “And pride comes before a fall.”
“What's wrong with being proud?” my son asked. “Aren't we supposed to have pride?”
Now a good question was on the table. He's right; we are supposed to be proud of ourselves. We are supposed to be proud of our work — and take pride in our accomplishments. We are supposed to be proud of our family name and our American heritage. We're proud to be Texans. We're proud of our educations. We take pride in our school work and accomplishments on the sports teams.We have taught our children all their lives to take pride in what they are doing and in who they are, so I could understand his confusion. I guess the problem is with our English language.
We are supposed to take pride, but not be full of pride.
“Well,” I said, “I'm talking about the kind of pride that says, 'I don't need anyone else and I don't need God. I have it all together.' It's good to be proud of yourself and take pride in what you do, but it's not good to think you are better than everyone else.”He nodded in understanding. Our challenge as parents, then, is to instill pride into our children, but not arrogance. To teach them to be independent thinkers, but not to the point of believing they have all the answers. It's not healthy to believe they are always right and everyone else is always wrong. That leads to a crash.
The scripture that says this is Proverbs 16:18, which says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” When he says “haughty spirit”, Solomon tells us what kind of pride he is writing about. It is not a healthy pride, but the kind that elevates us in our minds above where we should be. In the New Testament, Peter writes, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (Peter is quoting Proverbs 3:34). Again, the type of pride referred to here is the kind that says, 'I don't need God. I can handle everything myself.” In context, Peter talked about being humble in our dealings with each other and with God.
There is an American ideal that says we should be able to pull ourselves up by “our bootstraps”. We should be an independent man or woman. A hero despite it all. There have been plenty of movie characters who fit this description. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood have played this archetype a time or two. But God opposes the proud for the simple reason he wants us to depend on someone: him.
The balance we need to teach our children, then, is to be independent thinkers, true to good character no matter what, and proud of who they are, but realizing they need others to succeed. We need to teach them they need God, and he uses other people to bless and help them.It may seem like a contradiction, but I am an absolute charity case, completely dependent on God's mercy to feed myself and my family, but I'm also very proud of who I am and what I have accomplished. Working hard makes me proud, but knowing how dependent I am on God keeps me humble.
Life is about balance. We want our children to be proud — just not too proud.
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