Breaking Down our Pride.

WOW.  Pride. 
such a painful, tricky thing.  As I was reading through Chapter 9 of Beth Moore's Breaking Free, I was rocked.  How proud I am and how painful it is to face the truth.  According to Moore, pride is like poison, it ruins relationships, marriages, ministries, etc.  Why?
It keeps us seeking the best for ourselves and not the best for others or the common good.  It gets in the way of true love- AGAPE> >>
and ultimately is prevents us from Glorifying the Lord.  As pride hurts our relationships with earthy beings we love-- AKA not admitting you are wrong to a friend and causing hard feelings.--  Not lending a servant hand to your mother with the dishes--- pride prevents us from making God renown.  It keeps us in bondage to desiring our own glory and keeps us wanting to be acknowledged for our accomplishments, behavior and "how good we are".  As IF!?!?!? as if... the reason we are so good at "___" is from ourselves and not from the Lord. 

Pride is an extremely painful thing to be rid of.  Especially for me.  I never want people to see my weakness.  I cringe at hearing my faults and I do not take criticism well.  But the Lord has truly brought me to my knees and broken me sweetly and gently this past year. 
I ended a long-term relationship with someone I loved very much.  I found myself feeling very alone- hating life and in deep depression.  I developed abnormal eating habits and obsessed over anything that I myself could control....

for me that was the root of it-- PRIDE.  Not pride as in a boasting of how good I thought I was, but pride in terms of not trusting the Lord with my life or my happiness.   By selfishly clinging to things in my life I thought would provide happiness (idols).. I was not giving Christ the control and Lordship over my life that He deserves.  I despised myself, yet I was too proud to let God give me what I needed.  I did not completely trust in Him.  I would only give Him half of everything-- the rest I could handle right??  It took months for the Lord to break me down and humble me to the point where I confessed my unhappiness to my family and friends-- but threw it I experienced so much healing and relief.  Just admitting that I could not do it on my own was all the Lord was calling me to confess-- once I did I found so much peace, mercy, and grace in HIS arms and the hearts of those who truly love me.  I still feel a lot of shame and guilt -- even to the extent of self- abasement and even hatred.  But that behavior and attitude are also lies from the enemy.  God calls us to be humble and meek in a way in which we bow down and glorify Him in aw of His Majesty.  He does not call us to live in shame and guilt and self-punishment, which only leads to legalism and minimizing the Power of the Cross.  It undermines the significance of Christ's love, mercy and grace by saying that we do not really believe that Christ's death on the Cross is enough for us-- that it isn't enough to take away our sins or set us free.

Jeremiah 13:17

English Standard Version (ESV)

¹⁷But if you will not listen,
   ^(A) my soul will weep in secret for your pride;
my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears,
   because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

OUCH does that hurt! to consider the fact that I minimize the biggest sacrifice ever made-- for me-- out of Love.  How badly it hurts to know that I trample the Cross and Jesus' blood, sweat and tears when I am proud. 
Beth Moore puts it this way:  would you rather humble yourself or force God to do it for you??
Trust me He will.  He did it to me and boy has it been painful!!! nonetheless, I have never felt more blessed in my life.  Christ will always prevail, its our choice to submit willfully to the Cross.

The truth is: Getting rid of pride is like ripping off an old band-aid.  You just gotta suck it up and do it! The wound won't heal with a dirty band-aid! Both ripping it off and exposing the wound will sting, but with time it will heal :)

Matthew 23:12 

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted

Ephesians 2:8-9 

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.