I shared at a men's meeting today that I tend to put God off His seat of authority in my life when it comes to my self-worth. To be fair, the conversation prompt was, in fact, "Do I place my SELF-WORTH in something other than Christ?" Only one man in the room of twenty mentioned prideful arrogance as a struggle, and I truly thought I would be in the majority when I shared my struggle with prideful self-doubt. I hear Lauren Daigle popularly sing "You Say," addressing her need to follow what God says about her rather than the message of Satan her sinful self often repeats. Months ago, our pastor preached a hugely popular sermon using the acronym COGPOW to remind us we are Children Of God, Person(s) Of Worth. We do need to be reminded of that. Don't we? One of the men in the group chided me on what he assessed as my self-flagellating nature. All I could think when being corrected for my observation was, "God save me from the moment I think You are lucky to have me."
I get that we cannot go around with a gray cloud over our heads, moping in the world like Eeyore, the lovably depressed associate of Winnie the Pooh, but pride has to be kept in check. When I declare, even silently, that I am anything but God's child, heir of Heaven, and a member of a royal priesthood here on Earth, I am unseating God from the throne of my life. It is a sort of idolatry to contradict the one true God, no matter what I put in His place. ...Even if it sounds humble. That is just another form of false pride.
