Prayer: The Antidote to Pride
Authentic prayer to God is the antidote to pride. In order to pray, we must humble ourselves before the Lord.
Some of the earliest followers of Jesus speculated that among all the virtues, humility was the hardest one to cultivate in a person. Augustine of Hippo once said, "The way to Christ is first through humility, second through humility, third through humility." It makes a lot of sense that humility would be such a difficult trait to cultivate given that Adam and Eve's original sin was founded exactly on pride: "You will be like God" (Gen. 3:5 ESV), tempted the serpent in the garden. It's literally the oldest trick in the book.
As human beings, we have a way of inflating our view of ourselves. This makes sense. Who else is going to love and cherish us more than ourselves? But this only works if we don't believe in God who reigns over the universe. If God exists and we choose to worship Him, it changes everything about how we see ourselves. We come face to face with the fact that we do not reign supreme in the universe. God does. Prayer and meditation help me to come to grips with this reality and help me to align my life to it. Through the act of prayer, I fully recognize God for who He is and I fully recognize myself for who I am.
True prayer requires that we have a humble spirit. We come before the Lord and bow down before Him. We worship Him for who He is. We make requests of the King. We seek forgiveness for our sins. We listen to Him with the intention of obeying. Pride will cause us to distance ourselves from the Lord. More so, the Bible tells us that God actively works against those who are prideful. The letter of James records this: "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble" (Jam. 4:6 ESV). Pride has a way of getting in the way of our relationship with God. If we have pride in our lives, we won't be in a proper place to receive from Him. In fact, we might not even come to God in the first place because we think we're already self-sufficient. And on top of that, God actively opposes those who are prideful. It's a "double whammy" against the proud.
Authentic prayer to God is the antidote to pride. In order to pray, we must humble ourselves before the Lord. In prayer, we properly recognize Him for who He is. Whenever I skip even just a few days of prayer (usually for unexpected reasons), I begin to feel pride building itself in my life. I start to think of myself more highly. I start to lean on my own power and strength. I start to become self-centered. And I'm not even doing this intentionally. It just happens. These ungodly things start to encroach in my life even if it's only been a few days away from my prayer habits. Life starts to become more about me again. That's when I need to run fast back into prayer to God. True and authentic prayer to God has a way of tearing down what pride has been building up. Prayer is really the antidote to pride.
Barnabas the Monastic
Servant of Christ. Husband. Dad. Modern Monastic. I have a wild ambition in life: get as close to the Lord Jesus Christ as I can while on earth. I explore and integrate ancient Christian monk wisdom in modern everyday life. Lives in Canada.
