Pride and Subtlety

Vickie Chow

It is widely known that pride is a dangerous trap to fall in, even more so when it comes to our faith. I don’t know about you, but I hereby confess that I’ve had my leg caught in that trap a couple of times. Now, I haven’t waved a banner proclaiming the things I do to serve God or commented to my friends how hard I worked on last week’s BSF homework. Lately, I’ve been more conscious of certain subtle actions that essentially spring from the same attitude. Here’s a list of things that I’ve caught myself doing:

1. I’m too good for the Table of Contents

I don’t know about you, but other than Genesis, Revelation, and Psalms, I often cannot get to the passage I want without having to undergo a little trial and error with my page flipping. Normally, in the privacy of my own home, I am indifferent to how long it takes for me to find a passage in the Bible, but during Sunday service, when it comes time to open our Bibles to the scripture reading, I’m under a little bit more of a time constraint. I would imagine that the Table of Contents page is included in every Bible for just such a purpose—to facilitate easy page finding—but I cannot bring myself to using this page for fear of others who may notice and think “She doesn’t know where the book of 1 John is? Wow. Just wow.” I realize that the reality of it is more like no one is paying attention to my Bible perusing habits, but it ultimately comes down to my pride. Yes, I think I am too good for an innocent page outlining a list of books in the Bible.

2. The worn in Bible look

Normally, I’m one to prefer my belongings to look and remain as pristine as possible, however, with my school textbooks, I prefer the well used and worn in look—the more frayed and crumpled the better, as it exudes the aura of having been subject to late nights of studying. I acknowledge that it may lower its resell value to students taking the course in subsequent years, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I’ve recently realized that I may subconsciously do the same with my Bible. It’s as if the number of post-it notes that conspicuously protrude from the edges is in direct correlation with how close to God I am. A coffee stain on page 1279? Even better, that tells people you were sacrificing sleep for Bible study.

3. Sounding good during group prayer

I still remember the first time I was asked to pray out loud with a group of people. I think I blacked out a little bit. I’ve now gotten better at feeling more comfortable while praying with other people, but I still sometimes catch myself rehearsing my prayer in my head as we make our way around the circle. Instead of truly talking to God, I’d be more preoccupied with fishing for the right words and ensuring that I sounded as Godly as possible.

4. There’s an app for that

This one’s a little more technologically advanced in terms of subtle mediums through which I may “show off” my Christianity. I recently downloaded an app onto my iPod touch that contained a gazillion versions of the Bible so that I could be a bit more productive during my bus rides to and from school. My friend, who had recently purchased an iPhone, was sifting through my apps and noticed the one I had for the Bible and asked me where I had downloaded it. The moment she noticed it, I admittedly felt a slight beam of pride, as if the fact that I went through the trouble of downloading the app was an indication of my close relationship with God (albeit the app was free). Plus, it was on the first screen of apps, implying that I read the Bible on my iPod as much as I go on Facebook and check my email (which is too much). Now that truly says a lot about my spiritual maturity.

In Matthew 6 we are warned of not parading around our “acts of righteousness” or praying and fasting in front of others for the sake of seeming holier than thou. It’s often easy to avoid doing the overtly inappropriate, but it’s the subtle things we do that can perilously slip under the radar. Take dieting for example: it’s easy to avoid eating that slice of cake or that large chocolate bar, but it’s harder to catch bad habits when you’re just stealing multiple small bites or you’re slowly working your way through a sizable bag of Reese’s minis and pretty soon you find you’re clawing at the bottom of the bag (true story). Bottom line is, we should only care about what God thinks of our spiritual growth and maturity. After all, only He knows the true state of our relationship with Him, and there’s no amount of iPod apps or Facebook status updates that can fool that judgement.