Sunday, September 7, 2008

Avoiding Pride's Pitfall



Last week in Sunday School we had a lesson about the pride cycle shown above. It was good and I was left wondering how to cut from the "blessings" stage back to "humility and repentance" without going through the muck of the bottom half of the cycle. Reading this morning I was grateful to find the answer in a BYU-Idaho meeting summary. It was called "Stopping the Cycle of Pride".

My three take home lessons I gathered were as follows:

1) To say "grateful" or "blessed", rather than "proud of", when speaking of your hook-ups. 
2) To keep your nose in the scriptures (especially the Book of Mormon) to see and avoid pride. 
3) To avoid the desire to be recognized and "seen of men". 

The slides gave the following list to stay humble during blessings and prosperity:

-conquer enmity with others
-receive counsel
-forgive others
-give selfless service
-preach the word
-go to the temple
-repent & be born of Christ
-Love God - put Him first

Another good talk on the subject and more commonly known is President Benson's "Beware of Pride" talk. 

It is hard to not fall into pride. I do it all the time. As soon as things start going my way it is easy to slack and expect the blessings to continue. Hopefully you are above all that, but just in case I hope these ideas and links help. For some reason all this reminds me of scrooge as someone who rode the waves of the pride cycle...

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