Our Sinking Self-pride

Our Sinking Self-Pride

Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Luke 18:14

She was the largest passenger steamship in the world when she set off on her maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The British shipping company that built the passenger liner Titanic spared no expense to make sure it would be unsinkable. The ship’s officers were unconcerned by their inability to get accurate information on possible hazards that might lie in its course. “Not even God could sink the Titanic,” was the boast of those who put their confidence in the vessel.

The luxury ship had two lookouts on her masts, but the lookouts had no binoculars. The crew couldn’t see far enough ahead to react to danger, and they had no way to get their information to the captain if they did see a problem approaching.

We all know what happened. Four days into the crossing, on April 14, 1912, the “unsinkable” ocean liner sank to her death, along with most of her passengers, on her maiden voyage from England to America, the victim of a disastrous collision with an iceberg. As the King James translation of the proverb says, “Pride goeth before . . . a fall.”

Isn’t it true? Our self-confidence can sometimes get the better of us. When we put our full weight behind our own judgment, ability, or power, we inevitably push humility out of our hearts. Self-satisfaction and unhealthy pride become visible on the surface, but their danger is submerged in our unconscious. All the while we begin to feel pretty good about ourselves, as if we are actually better than others.

Let’s make this clear. Healthy pride, the pleasant emotion of being pleased by our work, is quite different than unhealthy pride where our egos are bloated by arrogance and conceit. And you don’t have to be an egomaniac to suffer from unhealthy pride. It has a way of secretly seeping into the crevices of our lives even when we are consciously inclined to avoid it. Ironically, our very efforts to be humble can be tinged with a tendency to look down on other people whom we believe are not.

So here’s the challenge as a couple: help each other maintain a healthy sense of pride and dignity while avoiding the unhealthy price of a bloated ego. This can be one of the great ways that “iron sharpens iron” in a relationship.

A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility.

—C. S. Lewis