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Space For Pride

Dec 13th, 2007
by Michael Krahn.

In his book Space for God, Don Postema writes of the need for artists to have an awareness of life in every moment that it is lived and to pay attention to what is going on around them. Van Gogh called this “grasping life at its depth.”

Superficiality is a great annoyance to me, and this annoyance has often been a source of unhealthy spiritual pride. It seems difficult to convince others to “grasp life at its depth” and so easy for pride to appear when one feels that he is grasping life this way.

I grasp deeply and fall in pride often. My pride is a hedge around me when I am ridiculed and a weapon I use to keep discomfort at a distance. I rest in my fortress until solitude comes again and then the light work of building up my pride resumes.

The world’s myriad distractions call at every moment of the day. They demand my time in a counterfeit still small voice. This voice asks me to become involved at a surface level in many things and deeply in none.

I am disappointed at how often I answer this call and how easily the enjoyment of surface involvement transmutes into a worthless and thieving obsession. This obsession enslaves and chokes the growth of other, more profitable desires.

Posted in: Books and Authors, Theology.

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  • http://www.michaelkrahn.com Michael Krahn

    As I read this I kept being reminded of one of the readings in Oswald Chambers “My Utmost for His Highest.” I recall this specific reading so vividly because this is an area that I too have struggled with…if I may, I’d like to post the full devotional here.

    “Shallow and Profound

    ” Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God ”

    —1 Corinthians 10:31

    Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others is produced in our lives. And it causes us to be a walking rebuke to other people because they are more shallow than we are. Beware of posing as a profound person— God became a baby.

    To be shallow is not a sign of being sinful, nor is shallowness an indication that there is no depth to your life at all— the ocean has a shore. Even the shallow things of life, such as eating and drinking, walking and talking, are ordained by God. These are all things our Lord did. He did them as the Son of God, and He said, “A disciple is not above his teacher . . .” ( Matthew 10:24 ).

    We are safeguarded by the shallow things of life. We have to live the surface, commonsense life in a commonsense way. Then when God gives us the deeper things, they are obviously separated from the shallow concerns. Never show the depth of your life to anyone but God. We are so nauseatingly serious, so desperately interested in our own character and reputation, we refuse to behave like Christians in the shallow concerns of life.

    Make a determination to take no one seriously except God. You may find that the first person you must be the most critical with, as being the greatest fraud you have ever known, is yourself.”