Resistance to Your Pride

In the beginning of St. Augustine’s Confessions, he states that there are two testimonies that humans “carry around.” The first is a witness of their own sin. This one seems pretty straight forward—we don’t always do the good that we want to do and sometimes, we even do what we know we shouldn’t. The second witness is that “You [God] resist the proud.” 

When I first read this part, I thought this second witness meant a more general thing, that God resists people who are really proud. Lately, though, I’ve started to see this resistance all over the place in my own life too. Perhaps my initial oversight was a sign of my own pride. I’ve been marveling at the fact that both little matters—and big ones—have an order to them. When I choose to neglect this order and do things my way, I experience a resistance that lovingly but not always pleasantly nudges me toward order if I choose to cooperate. 

For example, I can try to sleep in after my toddler has gotten up. Usually, however, this also comes with low-quality sleep that leaves me in a worse mood, anxiety about whether he’s getting into anything dangerous, and sometimes even a new mess to clean up. Both being a father and a toddler’s nature invite and even demand that I conform to a certain order. When I resist the order, it resists back. The more I resist, the more frustration, stress, sorrow, and pain I experience. The more I humble myself and come into conformity with it, the happier both he and I and my whole family are. 

There are many other examples in my own life of this same pattern. This week, I invite you to try out this way of looking at things: 

Where am I experiencing resistance (frustration, stress, sorrow, pain, etc.)? What changes might the order of things be asking of me? How long do I want to tolerate my pride? 

God bless,
Dan