Reading about humility

I started reading Humility by CJ Mahaney last night. One of the things I admire about my church minister is his humility (there’s some sort of contradiction in that I know). For all his intelligence, gifts, and apparent “success” in ministry, he remains humble and seems to have no desire to have his own name known – he just quietly goes about the Lord’s work in his patch.

A couple of weeks ago he and his wife had all the bible study leaders around for dinner, to talk about our groups and how they were going and we then had some discussion on the topic of pride, based on a list we’d all been sent of the ways pride can manifest itself. This was quite convicting and working through the list I thought, wow, pride really is a subtle and multi-faceted beast. Then we were all given a copy of this book to read before our next meeting. I’ve only just begun and I am already convicted on the same point and on my own oblivion towards my sin and rooting it out. Here’s a short quote:

The sad fact is that none of us are immune to the logic-defying, blinding effects of pride. Though it shows up in different forms and to differing degrees, it infects us all. The real issue here is not if pride exists in your heart; it’s where pride exists and how pride is being expressed in your life. Scripture shows us that pride is strongly and dangerously rooted in all our lives, far more than most of us care to admit or even think about.

The rest of this book could be painful.