pride

I am the most prideful person I know.

This is my battle currently. I knew, obviously, that there's pride in me, but I stared at it last night and it's worse than I thought. It really is disgusting.

It's irritating when three year olds get on a "why" kick; it's really irritating (to my flesh - disclaimer) when Holy Spirit does it. I love Him; I know He's helping me. My flesh hates it. It brings the deeper motives for everything I do into the light, and, yes, better they're brought to the light on this side of eternity but that doesn't make it less painful.

How much of everything that I do, do I do for the Lord? Not how many things of my laundry list of tasks per day do I accomplish for Him (1 point for worship practice, -1 point for dishes). Of each single thing I do for Him, how much am I really doing for Him? Fasting, for example. What is my motive? Is 99% of my motive to draw near my Creator and submit my will to His, and 1% of my motive to gain the approval of my church leaders? Because that's not good enough. Is my heart really to serve, or to be seen as a servant?

The thing about pride is that its such a painfully obvious thorn that you just have to deal with it. You can't pretend you didn't know it was there because it points itself out. If I look at someone and get a knot in my stomach because I'm irritated at his pride ... that's probably my pride whining about how he has nothing to be so proud about. Ouch. (Of course I'm sure there are circumstances wherein someone may have a word of knowledge about someone else struggling with pride, or a spirit of discerning on the matter, but if it's God it will be compassionate instead of annoying.)

Complications on the matter:
False humility is also pride.
A poor self-image is not the same thing as humility.

So I'm working on this.