Pride and Humility

Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom [Proverbs 11:2]

QUOTE: For the Christian, humility is absolutely indispensable. Without it there can be no self-knowledge, no repentance, no faith, and no salvation (Aiden Wilson Tozer).

Close I-70 (the section from Denver to all the ski areas) on a weekend morning in the winter; hop in a helicopter and throw bags of TNT out the window, or shoot the military-issued howitzer.

We are talking about doing avalanche control work for the State of Colorado and the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. This was my job for several years and one of the most unique, high-intensity jobs ever. It was my responsibility as an avalanche forecaster to determine the avalanche danger for the paths that crossed the highways, including the I-70 corridor from Georgetown up to Vail Pass, Loveland Pass, Berthoud Pass, and also Cottonwood and Independence Passes. I also trained and taught all CDOT workers across the state of Colorado on avalanche safety and awareness.

During snowstorms I would have multiple days with no sleep evaluating the conditions, hiking into snow stakes, digging pits to evaluate the snowpack, monitoring these avalanche paths and preparing explosives. A lot of the forecasting was done based on history of the paths, the current year’s snowpack, wind patterns, and what the current storm was producing. I saw an article that said that this is a job that has equal parts of prognostication, planning and pyrotechnics, and I would add a lot of fun!

We worked not only with the howitzer, but avalanchers, hand explosives, and the most fun was creating the bags of TNT that were thrown from the helicopter. The entire process of preparation for the explosive work was meticulous and required perfection, including the transport of explosives, to the actual avalanche control site. It always felt like a secret operation that we would start at three am so at sunrise we were on site, get the road closed, and could start the control work to avoid delaying traffic flow as much as possible.

I was honored to work with the icons in this industry such as with Dale Atkins, Nick Logan and Knox Williams, the three top creators of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. I learned so much from all of them and Nick passed on wisdom that I’ll never forget. He said, “you do have to be confident in this industry, but you can never be arrogant or proud to the point you are not paying attention to your surroundings. We are working with something that can be forecasted but at the same time something that can be very unpredictable. When you think you know EVERYTHING it is time to get out of this industry and to also stay out of the backcountry”.

This was wisdom I carried and adhered to within that job and also in my own backcountry adventures. Having high confidence was required in this position because the person on the CDOT side who managed all the explosives told us there was NEVER room for error. We were responsible for maintaining the safety of more than thirteen million cars that traveled this one stretch of highway with more than four thousand cars each hour going through the Eisenhower Tunnel: no pressure here!

Therefore, it was critical to learn how to balance our knowledge, position, and expertise without arrogance and pride. I was blessed to have had the best mentors in the industry for this; they were very knowledgeable, highly esteemed in the industry, yet very humble. This was a position that I loved and held for many years prior to all biscuits flying.

Arrogance: Unpleasantly proud, acting as if you are more important than others, exaggeration of one’s own worth or importance.

Pride: Disrespecting others, exaggerated appreciation of oneself by devaluating others.

Humility: The feeling or attitude that you have no special importance that makes you better than others; lack of pride.

Humble: Simply a spirit of not being arrogant or proud or free from pride or arrogance.

There are many Scriptures on pride and arrogance and the consequences of that behavior. This week is only a very small view into this type of thinking. There is a big difference of being confident and proud of your accomplishments as to being full of pride and arrogance.

There are six humility guidelines that I found to be of great help, which are included as this week’s Scriptures.

***Remember there are more details on podcast then here on the blog! 😊

SIX STELLAR HUMILITY GUIDELINES

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. [Philippians 2:3-4] 

1. DO NOT BE SELFISH: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit and always look to the interest of others instead of ourselves Wow, could you imagine a world where everyone followed this principle? Think about it for a moment, most hurt comes from people being arrogant or having a prideful moment.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form [Philippians 2:5-7] 

2. HAVE STELLAR THINKING: this entire book is about inspiring you to have the mindset of Christ, think as God thinks, Believe You Are Who God Says You Are, and know your identity is in Jesus. We are also to always be of service to others. We are not to look at other people as any less than ourselves regardless of who they are, what color their skin is, their economic status, or where they are living. So yes, that homeless man begging for money is to be treated just as you would treat a CEO of a multi-million-dollar company.

Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. [Philippians 2:14-16]

3. NO GRUMBLING: Do everything without grumbling, complaining, or arguing (yes this could be yet another book)! This is important because sometimes we may think that doing some things are beneath us and someone else should be doing it. Or we think that we should be further along in our journey and the things that God has us doing seem unimportant.

But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree, some of the people of Israel, have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root. Well, you may say, those branches were broken off to make room for me. Yes, but remember, those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. [Romans 11:17-20] 

4. EVERYTHING WE HAVE IS BECAUSE OF GOD’S GRACE: When we keep the perspective on what God has done for us because of His love for us; and there is NOTHING we can do to earn it or buy it. Everything we have is given to us by God’s grace.

Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud. Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the Lord will be joyful [Proverbs 16:18-20] 

5. MAINTAIN INTEGRITY: this to me is something that I hold dear to my heart. I want to be someone who listens to the Lord guiding in my life, the one who stays the course, doesn’t veer to the left or the right or, go from one shiny penny to another. It’s not a perfect journey for me, however, I never want to do something outside of the will of God or something dishonest for money. I mention this because it’s an area where a lot of business owners can get into trouble.

Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom [Proverbs 11:2]

6. HAVE HUMILITY: This verse sums up everything; when we have pride eventually, we will pay for it in some way or another and it usually comes in a package of great loss. However, if we will humble ourselves and listen to God Almighty, we will have wisdom and with wisdom comes the favor and blessings of God.

The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished. [Proverbs 16:5].

When we take these humility guidelines with the help of the Holy Spirit (not on our own) we can:

• Treat ALL people with respect and love.
• Be authentic and real with nothing to prove.
• Accept and learn from feedback without getting our feathers ruffled.
• Be aware of our failures without being devastated.
• Ask for forgiveness when we mess up.
• THINK about what we think about.
• Have the right thinking through the flying biscuits.
• Believe we are Who God Says We Are!

PRIDE AND HUMILITY: There is some confusion about what it means to be humble in our society. It doesn’t mean we are unable to think for ourselves, that we are weak or passive, or that we are to be a doormat. Being humble in God’s world is powerful; it means we know who we are in Christ, [where our identity is], and know we ARE WHO GOD SAYS WE ARE.

Without Him, arrogance and pride will take hold, and ONLY WITH HIS power can we do all that we are called to do.

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DAILY ACTION STEP
Say to yourself out loud
I AM WHO GOD SAYS I AM

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FRIENDLY REMINDER: Take out your journal and write down your thoughts, takeaways, and progress for this week!

TAKEAWAY GEMS

• Pride always comes before a fall right on our face…
• God hates pride and it’s offensive to him.
• When there is pride there is no humility
• Where there is pride it hinders our ability to hear God’s voice.
• Follow the six humility guidelines daily.

QUESTIONS TO “THINK ON”

1. When has pride gotten you into trouble?
2. Why do you think that God hates pride?
3. What does it mean to humble yourself before God?

ACTION STEP BE AN ACTIVE LISTENER: Being an active listener is practicing humility. This week pay attention to how you listen to others. Are you on your phone or doing something else when someone is sharing something with you? Do you have eye contact, and are you genuinely interested in what they are saying, or do you interrupt and cut in?

DAILY SCRIPTURES

DAY 1:  Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. [Philippians 2:3-4] 

DAY 2: You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form [Philippians 2:5-7] 

DAY 3: Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. [Philippians 2:14-16]

DAY 4: Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom [Proverbs 11:2]

DAY 5: The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished. [Proverbs 16:5].

DAY 6: But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree, some of the people of Israel, have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root. Well, you may say, those branches were broken off to make room for me. Yes, but remember, those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. [Romans 11:17-20] 

DAY 7: Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud. Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the Lord will be joyful [Proverbs 16:18-20]