I am going on vacation this week and will not post. I am originally from Magee, MS, a small town south of Jackson. Since moving to Philadelphia, I only go home once or twice a year; this is my longest visit thus far. I hope y’all have a great week. You can follow my personal blog here.
In anticipation of William P. Smith‘s new book entitled Loving Well, published by New Growth Press and coming out in February, New Growth Press is sponsoring a giveaway here at Reformed Mind. To qualify for this free copy of Loving Well, you must submit YOUR story to Reformed Mind using the form below. There is no word limit. The only requirement is a thoughtful reflection on an instance when you experienced “loving well” whether you were the giver or the recipient. It could have been in the midst of a difficult situation or just a kind gesture.
We will read through the submissions and select one to be highlighted here on the blog. The highlighted post will receive the copy of Loving Well.
Please submit your stories by Friday, February 3, 2012 and we will announce and publish the featured story here on Reformed Mind, on Monday February 6, 2012.
We look forward to reading these stories of acts of love in the midst of living life!
Forgiveness and Pride go hand in hand, and we often think of them in the fondest of light until we are trapped in the reality of the two. Let’s begin with Pride, the second of the two chapters.
Pride is that thing that will fight to the bitter end, severing relationships, destroying friendships, and alienating people. It has no regard for others or their emotions. It is short-sighted and cares nothing for future ramifications. It looks deeply inward, so far in fact that nothing outward is present even in the peripherals. Pride says, “I am number one.” It is in pride that forgiveness is never or rarely granted.
Lewis calls pride “The Great Sin”, and I agree. Lewis puts pride this way: “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man” (110). Pride’s concern is control, power, and domination. It seeks to steal and destroy only to gain more than the next person. “For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers” (111).
Lewis provides us with a great litmus test for evaluating our self-pride. “The more you delight in yourself and the less you delight in the praise, the worse you are becoming. When you delight wholly in yourself and do not care about the praise at all, you have reached the bottom” (112). Remember, pride turns inward and becomes our own biggest cheerleader. We sing praises and accolades to the great of all… ME.
In order to change from this treacherous state, one must begin looking outward, turning the gaze from self to selflessness. “To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin; though we shall not be well so long as we love and admire anything more than we love and admire God” (113). To truly turn from pride, we must and have to turn to God – for it is only from this perspective that we can see the real state in which we find ourselves and understand such things as forgiveness.
When we turn from the conceit of pride, we actually begin to see things for what they really are, including ourselves. For you see, pride says I am better than him, but forgiveness says, I understand the source of his problem and pain. To love one’s self is to see the depth of our own sin and misery, which is the only way to see others in the proper perspective. That is what Lewis means when he says, “But it [forgiveness] does want us to hate them in the same way in which we hate things in ourselves: being sorry that the man should have done such things, and hoping, if it is anyway possible, that somehow, sometime, somewhere, he can be cured and made human again” (106). To forgive someone, we must know what plagues ourselves and hate those very things in order to understand the things which plague others.
When I became a Christian in my late teens, I remember wrestling with the question of military and war and if God actually calls people to fight and kill others. When I read the Bible and history books, I realized that God did do such a thing. If it meant stopping the torture and destruction of a people group, like the Jews, I would have fought and killed those wreaking havoc on mankind (or at least I would like to think I had the guts). But what does forgiveness look like even in those times? “Even while we kill and punish we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves – to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured: in fact, to wish his good. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him, not saying he is nice when he is not” (108).
Forgiveness requires us to look inside ourselves but in the very opposite way than pride. It requires us to see the pain and misery within, knowing that that pain and misery captivates the world around us. We must look at others and hate those things which we find in ourselves.
Questions to consider:
*In what way do you see pride in your own life?
*How does pride prohibit you from practicing forgiveness on a regular basis?
*How does pride affect the way you interact with people, including those closest to you like children, spouse, and parents?
*Is there a time in your life where you forgave someone and something great came about because of it?