I once mentioned in a recent post how there is a thin line between a low self-esteem and been proud, you can read about practical tips for a healthy self-esteem here.

We already talked about people battling low self esteem, now let’s flip the coin and talk about pride.

Being proud is something very subtle and before you know it, you are just a little blown up just caught up in your own world.

It might be due to a lot of things, your beautiful/handsome body, your height, your net-worth, your job/position at work, and the list continues.

For some, the haughtiness on the outside is just a cover up for thedeficiency on the inside.

Identity crisis is the reason why some just behave in a rude way, cos in their mind, if they believe if they behave haughty enough, then they'll be able to earn the respect of those around.

If you're always behaving haughty to get respect, then you'll have to keep behaving haughty to sustain it and this isn't a good way to live.

Indicators That You Are Proud

-        You Feel Life Revolves Just Around You

While it is a good thing to think that you are a very important part of life and that you are a unique personality, but just thinking that everyone answers to you or that life is just about me, myself and I is a very strong indicator that you are proud.

 

-        You See Everyone Below You As Mere Trash

By grace, I have had access to some places where I never thought was possible for me to get to, and I have also witnessed people talk to fellow human beings like they are a piece  of rag because those people weren’t up to their standard, whatever that is. 

 

How To Deal With Pride 

Know You Are Only A Receiver

The scripture tells us that there is nothing that we have that we haven’t received from God, and if we have received all we have from God, why then do we behave like what we have is only by our strength?

1 Corinthians 4:7 (NLT) says it this way

What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?

Irrespective of the many blessings you might have received from God, bear in mind that you don’t own them and that you have only received them from the Lord.

I understand how you can start getting pumped up because you are at a particular level of life or because your investment account is already getting close to seven-figures or that it is even nearing eight-figures, just calm down please, there is nothing you have that you haven’t received.

That that gate man at that bank where you work always calling you sir does not give you the right to talk rudely to him, one thing life has taught me is that, times and opportunities are only what differentiate one from the other.

Mr Fred might have had the opportunity of being given birth to in a comfortable home, sent to school on time, graduated from the tertiary institution of learning on time, and by grace got employed on time, and from that time, life have just seem to go on well.

Mr Joshua on the other hand was given birth to in a polygamous home where the father told all his wives that he was not responsible for their children and that everyone of them are responsible for the well-being of their children. Joshua struggled to finish just his primary school, before learning one trade after another to survive, his not going to school was never his fault; it was just because of the kind of family he got born into and he didn’t have the choice to have chosen his family at birth.

Know this for sure, there are no owners, only receivers also known as stewards.

 

Bear In Mind That Life is Fleeting.

Life is so fleeting; it only last for a short time.

You can be here and gone tomorrow.

This is one fact of life that is very humbling for me, while I desire to live the best life always, but just thinking that there will be a day I’ll go back to my maker just humbles me.

If you are in a particular office at work, and for that reason, pride is already finding expression in you, how about thinking of the day you’ll resign from that job, get sacked or even at best to be told to go home due to age (retirement) or worse death comes knocking.

There is a day when we will all leave here, either Christ returns or calls us home, we are definitely going to leave here, so while that happens, can we do our best to make sure we live our best life always and that we don’t get all pumped up.

We are here today and can be gone tomorrow, like a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind.

Attend funerals and see that mighty man/woman with all he/she has owned been buried amidst all the affluence but in a casket with no cars or mansions, when you see that corpse in the casket, trust me, that moment is indeed life-shaping as you’ll tend to hold everything about this side of eternity lightly.

 

Desire A Heart Like Christ

Christ is the second person in trinity.

And at a point where God was supposed to come to this world in flesh, He came.

He was fully God and yet humbled himself to become like us.

No other person has every right to lay claim on everything on earth, or even has a right to be proud like Jesus, but yet, he choose to humble himself, even unto the death on the cross.

Philipians 2:5-7

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness.…

 

Always Count Your Blessing

Create out time at intervals to count your blessing.

As you count your blessings, you’ll realize that most of the things you are proud about aren’t anything of your doing.

Your height

Your fine face

Your beautiful structure

The money in bank

The money in investment

Your healthy family

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.

.

While we have our role to play in the way our life plays out, there are some things we can’t take credit for.

You are tall; it didn’t have anything to do with you.

Your fine face also doesn’t have anything to do with you too.

The money in bank and investment might be because of your prudency but what about those who couldn’t get a decent job after school, you’ll realize this is worth being grateful for too.

The wonderful spouse or healthy children you have isn’t by your power too, consider those more beautiful than you who are still unmarried or parents who gave birth to children who had one complication or the other.

Always count your blessing and don’t forget to name them one by one.

They’ll help you come down from cloud nine.

Bear in mind, that all you have; your greatest achievements are all gifts from God, they shouldn’t instill any sense of superiority on you, but rater humble you and let you continually be in awe of God the giver of all.