One of the toughest things I've had to deal with in the recent years is my inner pride between me and others, especially my own family members. My feelings tell me that they don't think I've grown up, or that I don't know as much as they do... When they suggest obvious things to me, try to help me, when they have pity on me, when they patronize me (to treat in a condescending manner), etc. And the worst part is that I do these things to them as well. This isn't a bash against anyone else, and is probably more against my own sinful nature.
I should mention that their "patronization" may and just probably is something that I am imagining. So when I say that, I realize it's just something that I perceive, but may not actually be the case in their motives.
Something evil wells up inside me, something that I don't often experience with my friends, but strangely only my family and maybe very closest friends. It's a deep rooted pride that comes out into the open square of my mind. I say to myself, "Do they really think I'm that dumb when they suggest that particular thing?" "Do they really think I couldn't have figured that out on my own, or that because it was me, it wouldn't have been as obvious as it would have been were it them in that situation?"
Most of the time this pride just manifests itself within my own thought life, but sometimes it does come out. And I believe it is soo dangerous and obvious when it does. This kind of pride really tends to have a lasting effect on me and will usually cause me to think about the particular incident of patronization all the more. I hold grudges about the tiniest things people say. When it does manifest itself, usually it means I draw away from people. I will be silent in a way that is obviously rude. When people, especially the one that offended me, asks me an innocent question, I may reply to them with a quick, "Oh, that's nice", but I really don't mean what I say on the inside.
It's weird, sometimes an individual will detect my change in attitude, and will think I'm just in a bad mood and not realize it was really their actions that caused me to be in such a mood. And they will then try to help me all the more, and then my pride kicks in, knowing that they know that I'm not in a good mood, and I will purposefully play along with their helping me. And even if they don't know I'm playing along with them in my own mind, at least to me I have won the battle and have defeated them and their pity they were displaying toward me. At this point my pride kicks in even more, because I've won an inward battle with them (within my mind), in which I was the only one that knew about it. The other person may see my attitude return to a more normal state, and then they think that their encouragement was the thing that helped me, but in fact it was the inward prideful battle that I won against them.
I am honestly horrified at myself sometimes, at the depths of the deception of pride that I can get myself into, within my own mind. The depths are so great sometimes, that I know that I am deceiving myself, and yet I still follow it. When I say I have a knowledge of my own deception, I don't mean I find out after the fact that I deceived myself, but that I understand it in a detailed way even before it happens, and know the outcome of my mental deception.
God, please give me, and all of us, hearts of humility and love for You! Teach us how to be humble! I certainly don't know how! I see the example of Your Son in Philippians chapter 2, and He is who I need to follow! Teach me, Lord!
