Ever since I was a kid, I can remember being captivated by the pen of
CS Lewis. When I entered the land of
Narnia, I was hooked. I loved reading the books as a kid and thoroughly enjoyed seeing the full feature film this past Christmas season. In preparation for the movie, I reread the first half of the
Narnia series. This got me excited about all of the other Lewis literature out there. I dug out my copy of
Mere Christianity and gave it another skim. However, what has gotten me captivated this time around is the spoken Lewis. I picked up an audio book of
Mere Christianity and have been listening in my car. I have gotten many more things out of the text by relaxing and having it read to me. It amazes me how many fundametals he covers in such a small book.
Today, I intermittently learned about forgiveness, sin, and marriage while riding in my car. My biggest lesson of the day? Pride. It's at the heart of sin. Nearly all of it. Pride, the love of oneself, drives a tremendous wedge between us and God. Pride causes us to think of our own good over the good of others. Pride leads to every other kind of immorality. How do we know if we are prideful? Lewis puts forth a test. "How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?" My pride is relative to the pride of those I interact with. It is competitive. Pride drives me to want to acquire and experience all that I can... so that I may have the upper hand in the battle of status. As Lewis puts it, we don't want to be rich, clever, or good looking. We are proud of being richer, cleverer, and better looking. It is all relative to those that we compare ourselves to. We take pleasure in being above the rest. Our society has an almost natural inclination toward pride.
The Christian opposite of pride? Humility. In order to truly give ourselves to God, we must be humble. We must not allow our pride to continue to control us and make us restless and unhappy, but rather turn toward God in humble submission to His will in our lives.
I must continue to humble myself and curb my pride out of my love for Him.
