Donald Wickham’s Blog

I was on a coaching call today and the topic was Pride, pride in oneself.  My coach believes pride is a virtue and a needed foundation for success.  I, on the other hand, struggle with the term.  Having been in Christian circles for years, I’ve continually heard pride is a sin.  Pride comes before destruction.  God is against the proud.  So are these two views at odds?

 

When we offer something to others, whether it is a service, like coaching, or a product, work of art or other thing we make, how are we to feel about it?  And when others compliment or praise us for what we do, how are we to take it?  When we do something well, with excellence, can we feel good about it?  Clearly, taking pride in something we didn’t accomplish, like being tall or beautiful wouldn’t seem right.  Gratitude would be appropriate but not pride.  But if it is something we did, and did well, shouldn’t there be that feeling of pride?  Or is our challenge the fact that we don’t have enough terms to distinguish good pride vs. bad pride?

 

When we say that some one is a proud person, we usually think of that in a negative way.  We associate haughtiness, arrogance etc with that term.  But when you say you’re proud of some accomplishment, that seems OK. 

 

Let’s look at the opposite of pride.  And it isn’t humility.  It is false humility.  This is where a person thinks lowly of themselves and never receives compliments.  They don’t feel worthy of acclaim.  Clearly this isn’t what we are called to do.  At least I don’t see that.

 

What posture do we take?  What is true humility?  Jesus was humble.  Yet he was totally secure in who he was.  Acclaim didn’t puff him up nor did adversity pull him down.  He knew who he was, and is, and what his purpose was.  He lived fully.

 

So how am I to live?  I’ve lived many years.  That gives me some perspectives.  I’ve gained training and experience in a variety of fields.  I have gifts and abilities to share.  I’ve helped people and enjoy doing so.  I’ve overcome, with God’s help, obstacles.  I’m very good at some things.  As some have said, I have a glory to share with the world and it awaits my doing so.  This all being said, can I have pride in this?  Certainly a gratitude to God but also a satisfaction, a good feeling, to be who I am and offer that to others. 

 

So what is this to be called?  A humble confidence?   Or???  I’d love to here your ideas and thoughts.

Tags:   confidence · false humility · Pride · proud · vice · virtueNo Comments