I am prideful. Coming from that, I am perfectionistic, over-achieving, and sometimes vain. As a result of these, especially the first two, I am confident and fairly successful. Those might be looked at as positive characteristics, but I struggle with humility, am quick to judge a poor performance of myself or others, and consider myself entitled to high achievements. Lo and behold: I'm human.
I'm not proud of this (not proud of my pride?), but it will probably be a lifelong fight to overcome myself, something I know I'll only ever be able to accomplish by God's grace. I find it ironic that I tend to be good at almost everything I put my mind to, that this has caused me to be proud, and that this pride is what causes me to be bad at something: humility.
Now, I said almost everything. I am capable of everything to some extent, but I definitely have some places where I don't have an inborn talent. For example, my sister, Teresa, is a way better athlete than I am. She does the workout videos with Dad and she can run a mile a lot faster than I can and she excels at soccer and track and netball. It always frustrates me when something reminds me that she's more athletic than me because I wish I could be like her, but I can't. Another example is music; my lack of the ability to play an instrument doesn't cause as much frustration as sports do, maybe because I can sing, but it's still an area in which I'm not especially talented. I watch Matt play the guitar and I'm fascinated by the movement of his fingers, or another friend will talk about music theory and playing classical piano and most of what he says goes straight over my head. I'm just not as strong in these fields as in others.
My frustration is the wrong reaction. Multiple places in the Bible it says the body is made up of many parts, and each has its own function. In Romans 12 it says
3 Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.4 Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. (Romans 12:3-5, NLT, biblegateway.com)
Um, message from the Lord to me at all? This has really been striking me as I've read through and memorized Romans this year for Bible Quizzing. "Don't think more highly of myself than I ought to think." A better reaction would be to support those who have talents different than mine and cheerfully accept help when they offer.
I'm not proud of this (not proud of my pride?), but it will probably be a lifelong fight to overcome myself, something I know I'll only ever be able to accomplish by God's grace. I find it ironic that I tend to be good at almost everything I put my mind to, that this has caused me to be proud, and that this pride is what causes me to be bad at something: humility. Now, I said almost everything. I am capable of everything to some extent, but I definitely have some places where I don't have an inborn talent. For example, my sister, Teresa, is a way better athlete than I am. She does the workout videos with Dad and she can run a mile a lot faster than I can and she excels at soccer and track and netball. It always frustrates me when something reminds me that she's more athletic than me because I wish I could be like her, but I can't. Another example is music; my lack of the ability to play an instrument doesn't cause as much frustration as sports do, maybe because I can sing, but it's still an area in which I'm not especially talented. I watch Matt play the guitar and I'm fascinated by the movement of his fingers, or another friend will talk about music theory and playing classical piano and most of what he says goes straight over my head. I'm just not as strong in these fields as in others.
My frustration is the wrong reaction. Multiple places in the Bible it says the body is made up of many parts, and each has its own function. In Romans 12 it says
3 Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us.4 Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5 so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. (Romans 12:3-5, NLT, biblegateway.com)
Um, message from the Lord to me at all? This has really been striking me as I've read through and memorized Romans this year for Bible Quizzing. "Don't think more highly of myself than I ought to think." A better reaction would be to support those who have talents different than mine and cheerfully accept help when they offer.
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