The Delusion of Pride

The King Peacock - by artur022 from www.sxc.hu

The King Peacock – by artur022 from www.sxc.hu

John Wilkes Booth thought he would be a great hero.  He boasted before his deed of killing Abraham Lincoln, “When I leave the stage I will be the most talked about man in America.”  He imagined riches and glory coming his way because of his deed.  He saw his name going down in history as a man of courage ridding the world of a great tyrant.  After the assassination when he was in hiding in the Maryland swamps he was brought some of the current newspapers.  He was shocked to learn he was being labeled a “scoundrel and coward.”  Even the Richmond newspaper and the most decidedly anti-Lincoln paper the National Intelligencer called Lincoln a true American hero.  Booth wrote in his journal, “I can never repent it, though we hated to kill.  Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made men the instrument of his punishment.”

A study of Booth’s life reveals a man of great pride and arrogance.  This pride deceived him and made him in many ways delusional about his role and legacy.  But this is how pride works!  Pride twists our vision.  It makes us incapable of accurately perceiving reality.  Pride puts on blinders so that we see ourselves rather than others.  All sin is rooted in pride and was the original error of Satan (1 Timothy 3:6).

Pride makes us not think properly, and thus not act properly.  Pride so twists our thoughts that we can make God our ally as Booth did.  But pride does not come from the Father, it comes from the world (1 John 2:10).

This seems to be one of the primary dangers of pride is that it distorts a proper perspective.  We do not accurately understand ourselves, God, and others because of our pride.  You may be thinking, but I am not an assassin like Booth,yes, but how has pride distorted your thinking?   Consider these examples:

  • A husband falls to an affair because he pridefully demanded his “privacy” with his phone, text messages, emails, and lunch activities. 
  • A wife is unwilling to offer respect and admiration to her husband as he needs.  She nags, complains, and is inconsiderate of him all in an attempt to hurt him because he doesn’t give her what she expects.
  • A preacher preaches a forceful sermon on the sins of criticism and lack of involvement after some brethren had sincerely offered some suggestions to his “pet” ministry and only a handful showed up.
  • A teenager spouts smart remarks at his parents, drives to fast, and gets drunk on Friday night, all because “he can do what he wants!”
  • The elder who pushes hard to have his way on an opinion issue despite the fact that most of the church is against such a decision.
  • Two brothers rarely spend time together as in the past.  They have gotten upset with each other over some deal.  Both want to move past it, but both are not willing to see their part in the rift.  They pass the years away with a cordial relationship, but not as brothers, because of their pride.

You put your story in the post.  All of us struggle with pride.

The difficulty is that we have trouble realizing it because of the distortion pride brings.   This is why we abhor pride in others and can spot it from a mile away, but we live oblivious to it in our own lives.

Pray today that God will expose pride in your heart and in your relationships.

How is pride twisting your perspective?

In the next post we will discuss how to combat pride with humility.

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Source for Booth Story:  Killing Lincoln by Bill O’reilly and Martin Dugard,  2011

Permanent link to this article: https://www.joshketchum.com/the-delusion-of-pride/

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  1. “the distortion pride brings” so true in so many ways! Very good article!

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