Pride

  During my Morning Scripture Study, I was reading some counsel that had been given by a spiritual leader, Ezra Taft Benson. He was talking about Pride. Sure, I’ve heard of pride before, but I’ve always thought of it as describing the feeling of thinking you are better than everyone else. But what he said in addition to this was “Pride is characterized by ‘What do I want out of life?’ rather than by ‘What would God have me do with my life?’ It is self-will as opposed to God’s will. It is the fear of man over the fear of God.”

  Wow, this really hit me hard. I mean, I am a goal oriented person. Not that I’m always successful at reaching the goals I set for myself, but I do like to have goals and come up with plans on how to achieve those goals. These goals are always things I want for myself. Things I want for my life. I never stopped to consider what the Lord wants for me or for my life. I felt that as long as I was choosing good, positive goals, then there was no harm done. And I’m sure, that for the most case, this is probably true. I think the Pride part comes in when all of my focus is on my goals, and what I want for my life, and don’t stop and pray for guidance as to what the Lord wants me to be doing with my time and my life.

  I have to admit that this will be a hard one for me to change. I’ve always felt like I was making good choices with my life and my time (Pride, thinking my plan is better than God’s plan). I’ve never asked the Lord what He would have me do. Mostly because I felt like if His answer didn’t match up with my desires, then I wasn’t interested…Pride.

   Yeah….I’ve got a long way to go, but the best way to change, is to take the first step.

https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-the-church-ezra-taft-benson/chapter-18-beware-of-pride?lang=eng