It’s hard to know if any photo you see is reflective of reality. For example, happy family holiday photos probably took a bazillion tries to get right. A family isn’t going to send out the pictures where the kids are rolling their eyes about “having to do it again,” and completely goofing off. No, the picture has to be perfect in the eyes of the parent. But in truth, those kids who are smiling, giggling and looking like little angels in the cards their family sends out are more than likely little terrors during the time in which those unusable pictures were being taken.
A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but often 999 of those words are lies. This has become even more true as the ability to alter photos has grown due to filters and adjustments. Everything placed in the photo may be exactly the same, but the alterations have changed the context in which that photo was taken. In the same manner, the way we view reality can be altered with a real-life filter—pride.
“It’s not my fault!” is the excuse that’s been made since the first man and woman. We look everywhere but ourselves for where the problem lies. We’re so quick to find fault with what everyone else is doing, but so blind to our own imperfections.
The reason for this is the manner in which pride blinds our eyes to the truth. Pride creates the illusion we are smarter, stronger, more athletic, etc. Whatever we want to be, our pride creates the filter for how we view ourselves. The Bible warns about our pride and its negative effects repeatedly.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)
“A man’s pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.” (Proverbs 29:23)
“Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” (I Peter 5:5b)
A negative interaction between you and authority? It’s possible the person who is in authority over you isn’t the issue. It could be you aren’t the smartest person in the world and the person in authority is over you for a reason.
Failing to follow through with the idea you came up with? Your problem may not be that you couldn’t. It might just be you didn’t have the work ethic to get the job done.
A relationship gone bad? There’s a chance the girl you really liked isn’t a terrible person who was trying to hurt you. It could be you need to look in the mirror and work on your own problems.
Those times you gave in to your flesh and sinned? It’s not that the temptation was too much to resist. You just didn’t have faith that God’s plan was actually best for you.
That small amount of time you spend on God and the things of God? It isn’t that you have too much to do. The problem is you don’t have your priorities in line with what’s truly important.
You’re not the pantheon of virtue that you’ve built up in your mind. You are human. You make mistakes. But those mistakes don’t have to define you. You don’t have to fight alone.
“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;” (II Corinthians 3:5)
For the Christian, understanding our strength comes from God is so critical to the Christian life. The times when we start thinking of ourselves higher than we ought to are when we fail the most. The only way to grow is to take the pride filter off our worldview and start seeing ourselves as God sees us.
