Relationships, pt.2

You can find part 1 here

2. Pride as a destroyer of relationships. I never really thought of pride as an issue in my relationships, but, that's probably because I haven't spent much time thinking about what pride is and does. Pride can lead people to be critical of others, always finding fault in what they do or how they do it, while at the same time the person is unwilling to admit their own faults and short comings. It can also be a cause of superficial relationships. In order to protect your own view of yourself you keep others from getting to close and getting to know you. This way you can keep your faults hidden. Some people express their pride by always having to "oneup" everyone. They always did it better or faster, always have a story to top yours. The other thing that pride can lead to is the unwillingness to admit weakness. Admitting one's weakness is a tough one, our culture frowns upon men(particularly) admitting to any real weakness, so, whether it's pride or not is up to you and your conscience.

When it's laid out like this it becomes very clear to me how this can not only destroy relationships, but, cause them to never really get started in the first place. Beyond that, Prov 3:7 says, "Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil." I never really realized how destructive pride could be or why it was a sin so often mentioned in the Bible. Now I see how much it can effect one's relationships, and that directly impacts our mandate to love one another. So...

The opposite of pride is humility. I have to say that pride has always seemed to me to be an Old Testament theme, and Humility a New Testament one. A quick search shows that, at least these exact words, are both used about the same as each other and both are used more times in the Old than the New Testament (ESV). So much for my intuition. Well, maybe I have that gut feeling because, while the word may not be used as much in the scriptures, Christ was a constant example of humility. He didn't preach it, he did it. At least to me, his actions speak louder than any words. There is no good reason to push others away, no sense in trying to hide our weaknesses (Mat 26:41) "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." I can see how it could be a bit scary to let people in close to you. But, I've always found that the majority of them will be good to you if you give them a chance.