The great infectious sin

Liba Hopeson *

A woman surprisingly noticed all her beautiful flowers being plucked off and some plants heartlessly uprooted. She was furious to see it. To find out the culprits, she asked the neighbors grimly. After asking some people desperately, being unable to find out the perpetrators, she came back home sullen and resentful. It was wrongly presumed by her that somebody did it to exasperate her, but she never realized that it was by her loving, innocent looking daughter.

If you, in your life, see many vices in others, and think that you do not commit big sins, that you are a nice person, your perceptive of sin is apparently wrong. One big sin, which I called the great reproductive sin, is in all of us – it's in our mind and heart – we constantly carry it with us. It is a five letter word – pride. No one is free from this sin. I say it is a reproductive sin because it leads to every other sin. Billy Graham said that all sin is selfishness in some form or the other, and pride consists essentially in undue self-esteem, delighting in the thought of one's own superiority over his fellows.

Lately, I realize that it is the greatest sin of all. C.S. Lewis intimated, "Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere fleabites in comparison; it was through pride that the devil became devil; it is the complete anti-God state of mind". You go to a Showroom, grab some things in front of the owner, and say that those things belong to you and leave without payment. You drink tea in a restaurant, your friend give money to you; you pass it on to the owner and say that you are paying with your money. Your uncle writes an article for you, send it to a magazine for publication, and you say that you wrote it. Pride is all about that. With it, you take the place of God. It is an anti-God action.

This great sin, pride, as Lewis remarked, the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. So, to him, if you want to find out how proud you are, the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronize me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with everyone else's pride. It is competitive by its very nature, while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. The idea of this great writer really struck me. How true! The more we are proud, our gossip and criticism mount.

One of the biggest temptations we face is the temptation of pride. The tempter works hard to make us proud, but he works harder in instilling our mind that we are not haughty though we are. Thirty percent of his efforts are used to make us proud, but seventy percent of his efforts are used to let us think that we are not proud at all (I got this data from nobody, it's my own calculation). The sun rises every day, and the battle of pride comes every day. For those who recognize this battle, life becomes harder and harder as their life become better and better.

If the people around you are drunkards, alcoholics and drug addicts, but you are not, if your neighbors never go to Church, never fast, read Bible, give tithe, and you do, if your neighbors steal, quarrel and fight, and you are not, if your friends are idle, not punctual, careless and unkind, but your are hardworking, punctual, kind and thoughtful, you have to be very, very careful. You are in danger. Remember that you are greatly assailed by a mighty storm.

Here, I make mention of danger not to indicate that the bad people around you are a threat to you, nor to glorify their actions and side with them, but to state that the greatest danger is in turning self to Self. I also don't mean that we cannot talk about them at all and teach them. But, the most risky person is you; your biggest foe is yourself. So you have to fight with yourself incessantly. The better person you become, the Battle of Oneself become fiercer.

However, while talking about this contagious sin, it is important to know that, pleasure in being praised is not pride. Nowadays I begin to doubt people who say that they don't like being praised – having this view, I hold, is a temptation in disguise. Once, a lady officer, after being praised, said to a man that she is a person who doesn't like to be praised. Then, instantly, one of her colleagues replied, madam, I think it's a lie, I can't believe that. She asked him why. He answered, "Even Jehovah loves praise; He was happy when Abraham praised Him". Then she chuckled hysterically. Indeed God wants our praises.

But the problem starts when you delight in Self. When you say you don't want praises, you could be proud. For you say that because you think that you are humble or you want to have humility. That's where pride creeps in you. The moment you think or speak out you have it, you lose it – that is humility. I agree with Lewis when he said, do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays; he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all". Many have the pride of humility and it is a huge menace to one's life.

Pride, as we know, does not always bear a negative meaning. When a man says, I'm proud of my son, if the sense of pride is taken rightly, it is not a sin. It simply means 'a warm-hearted admiration for'. Nonetheless, if the father starts thinking proudly that all his son's goodness are due to him and take all the credits in his mind, wrong pride is born.

I have heard people saying that such and such persons are what they are because of me; if I discontinue supporting or assisting him, his job will be terminated; he will be nowhere; he will be helpless, he is what he is through my mercy and care, so on and so forth. For such people, I would suggest you to think that, those whom you have helped have become what they are because of the love of God. Just consider that God has placed them in their positions by simply using you, that too, out of His mercy and grace.

How can you think that they are privileged to receive something good only through your mercy? You are not even the owner of your life, and how can you claim that it's just because of you that somebody is standing well? So, even the positive sense of pride is also tricky, it's hard to deal with. For everyone, to face the wave of this great infectious sin is inevitable. For both the good and bad, it is inescapable. With the good and bad things they posses, they can have pride.

But in my view, the good ones are in more dangerous zone. But if you think that you are not affected by it, or think that you do not have any problem with it, you are in a very, very great dangerous situation. Indeed we are not proud always, but as we go out and come home often, pride comes and goes. It is a subject which I find hard even to preach, for when we preach on any topic, we ought to posses or practice what we preach, but sadly, humility is a thing which vanish from us the moment we think we have it.

If you think you are not conceited, you are very conceited, stated Lewis. So if you want to acquire humility, the first and foremost thing to do is to think that you are proud. Does it sound ridiculous? If you tend to disagree with this view, you think you are humble, which means pride is reigning over you.

That is why Jesus said to the pompous people, "tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you". There is no medication for this; your mind is the only thing to treat it, of course with the help of the Almighty.