“Pride is best buddies with insecurity.”- Kyle Idleman
Kyle Idleman states in Chapter 3 of The End of Me that the key to understanding your inner Pharisee’s power is that your inner Pharisee is all about performance. In contrast, one of the central themes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is: God looks at the heart. The heart is the true measure of what we are. Performances are too easy to fake.
According to a new book on the subject, humblebrag is the practice of the art of false modesty- for example, a person posting about being exhausted (humble) after a wild and crazy vacation (brag). The danger, especially in social media, is that others know only what you want them to know about you.
Just like the Pharisees, we can develop an “I” problem if anything other than Jesus becomes a foundation for our confidence. It’s so easy to point to what we do, to stuff visible on the outside. But Jesus is interested in who we are on the inside. Only Jesus can see inside us, and there nothing can be faked.
Conversely, the tax collector shows us what “the end of me” looks like, as Kyle describes:
“He is broken, humbled by the majesty of God, and all he can do is plead for mercy and grace as he acknowledges the toll of sin in his life.”
Today’s question: What lessons in humility have you learned as a result of your vocation loss? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Taking ownership of our own humility”
