I don’t think I knew I had a pride problem up until a month or so ago.  I thought I had a “normal” amount of pride, but I didn’t realize that this is something that I struggle with, something that I have to put an “extra” amount of fight into.

Pride is like a dandelion.  Dandelions root deep into your yard.  They are terribly hard to get rid of.  It requires digging them deep from the root, or even chemicals.  If you have just one dandelion, it could spread and infect your whole yard.  And if you are living next to a yard with dandelions in it, it WILL spread to your yard.  So sometimes we just ignore the dandelion.  Call it a “flower” when it’s really a weed.  We let it grow all over the yard, blend into our flower beds, and it gets out of control. Very easily. In order to get it under control, it requires almost daily maintenance.  It sucks.

Pride roots deep into us, and is incredibly difficult to get rid of.  In order to get rid of pride, we have to dig into the root of it (our innate desire to sin?).  It requires deep cleansing, deep chemicals to get rid of it.  It requires finding our identity in God, soaking ourself with the word.  If we are surrounded by people with pride issues, it is going to impact us and we are going to struggle with pride as well.  Sometimes, we choose to ignore that we have a pride problem.  We justify it by saying that our behavior is part of being someone in authority; or that it isn’t pride, it’s happiness or loving who we are.  When in fact, it’s our own conceit.  By justifying it, pride turns into other sins, and chokes the progress we have made and negates our progress.  In order to get rid of pride, we have to daily remind ourselves to be humble and get in God’s Word.

I don’t know when I started being prideful.  Perhaps it was there all along, perhaps it just developed, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore.  I know that it roots in my lack of self-confidence, so I would buff myself up to make myself feel better.  I know it roots in that I do a lot of things, yet I forget to include God in it all the time.  I know that my pride has crept into my schoolwork, my relationships with my friends, my relationships with the opposite sex, and my position in church.  I know that in order to fight this, I’m going to have to remind myself every day of humility.  I’m going to have to fight this problem as if I’m fighting dandelions.

If you are reading this, and you have been hurt by my pride and snobbery, I am deeply sorry.  Pray for me to grow and become humble.  I have taken some steps already, but I know that I can’t do this without God and without a community of believers praying for me.

I thought this was a funny tattoo. and appropriate :)