Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is often called the “silent killer.” The one-third of adults who suffer from it don’t look or feel different than anyone else. Many don’t even realize they have it until it is too late and the damage has already been done — damage such as strokes, heart attacks, and kidney failure to name a few.
As I was recently reading about the fall of Babylon in 539 BC and thinking about the pride that led to that fall, it struck me that pride is a sort of “spiritual hypertension.” Those who suffer from it look and feel roughly the same as everyone else around them; often, they are not even aware that they have it. Yet, just as high blood pressure silently erodes the body, so too pride quietly erodes our spiritual life. Specifically, it damages our relationship with God, our relationship with others, and eventually our relationship with ourselves.
James 4:6 indicates that “God opposes the proud.” He doesn’t just pity or tolerate the proud; He actively opposes them. Look at what happened to His top angel, Lucifer, when he became prideful. God cast him out of heaven, never to return. Apparently, God takes pride very seriously even when we do not. It is extremely difficult to have a positive relationship with God when He is opposing us!
Pride also limits our human relationships. In marriage, when one spouse views the other with contempt (of a lower station or class than themselves), the marriage is almost always doomed to failure. Friendships likewise depend on a sense of equality, not in wealth, talent, or intelligence, but in essence or kind. We must view each other as peers in our humanity, the details being entirely secondary. Pride wants to group others into categories not worthy of our attention, quickly limiting our pool of potential relationships. Pride is a lonely path.
Eventually, however, life bumps up against our pride. We then come face to face with the fact that we aren’t perfect, we aren’t always right, and we aren’t better than everyone else. Often it is a loss in our life — loss of a job, of our health, or a treasured relationship — that clues us in. This can be a great time of growth and self-awareness.
Unfortunately, pride has a tendency to become angry and fight back. It shouts, “It’s everyone else’s fault, not mine!” When this doesn’t work, it becomes depressed and moody. It whispers, “It really is everyone else’s fault” in the back of our mind. It makes us a miserable wretch, clinging to a falsehood we want so desperately to be true.
But, if somewhere amidst the crests and troughs of our turbulent sea of wretchedness, we can let go of pride and grab the lifeline of humility, we will find that God does indeed “give grace to the humble” just as His word promises. No longer opposing us, He begins to calm the seas around us. We discover we aren’t alone after all; the sea is full of others clinging to similar lifelines. And although each one is unique in many ways, each is still nothing more or less than we are — a simple human being in desperate need of God’s grace.
Filed under: Devotional, Uncategorized | Tagged: humility, hypertension, hypertension is the silent killer, pride, pride is a spiritual killer, relationships | Comments Off
Wine, Waiters, and Rorschach Tests
The Waiter Rule is another tool employers commonly use when evaluating potential hires. Interviews are conducted over lunch, where the applicant’s treatment of the wait staff can be closely observed. His kindness to the girl refilling his water-glass tells much more about his true character than his courtesy to a prospective employer.
For years, psychologists have used inkblot or Rorschach tests to analyze personality types. The patient is shown a series of nondescript splotches of black on white and asked to identify the shapes. If every inkblot looks like a monster with fangs, there is likely an underlying problem.
Wine, waiters, Rorschach tests — each of these methods have proven helpful at revealing what a person is really like.
When a post my wife wrote a few weeks back went unexpectedly viral, we discovered a new way to find out what people are really like — by reading their blog comments and associated discussion boards!
The anonymity of the internet is the electronic equivalent of a couple of drinks. People tend to let their hair down when they are online. Some let it way down. And then, much like a waiter, the blogger is put at the mercy of the commenter.
But angry, hateful replies reveal more about the person leaving the comment than about the post they’re attacking, especially since hurling abuse at a blogger is even less risky than being mean to a waiter: a blogger isn’t going to spit in your food.
If you are reading this, you may already be familiar with my wife’s blog 25 Ways to Communicate Respect to Your Husband and my corresponding blog 25 Ways to Show Love to Your Wife. We wrote these posts the same week we celebrated our silver wedding anniversary, to commemorate the 25 happy years we’ve spent together.
These articles have enjoyed immense popularity/notoriety, with well over one million views and 245,000 pins on Pinterest, not to mention the 1000+ comments they have generated. We’ve passed through as many of these comments as we could, both good and bad.
The positive replies were full of kudos and encouragement. The negative replies were full of indignation and outrage.
We normally edit out curse words, but a few of the dissenting opinions were so vile in language or imagery that they couldn’t be cleaned up adequately to publish. The discussion boards were even worse, enough to make a sailor blush. While it does not bother us that some readers disagree with our ideas, we’d prefer that they do so in a well articulated, intellectually honest, and mutually respectful way.
Whenever you give a two stimulus and get a ten response, there is eight of something you don’t know about contributing to the reaction, especially when literally tens of thousands of people think the stimulus/blog is terrific. It made me wonder more than once what is smeared on the windshields of some people’s lives that makes such a beautiful thing appear so ugly to them.
The next thing that seemed almost universal to the negative responses was that Self is clearly on the throne. Positive responders seemed to understand that putting your partner first is the bedrock of a healthy relationship. The dissenters made it abundantly clear in tone and just as often in words that their marriage is more about what they get than what they give.
Of course, no one likes to be considered self-centered, so some of them tried to get partial credit as a caring person by slipping in the old, “I respect my husband, but…” Then they’d list all the ways they refused to show it.
If somebody tells you, “I’d love to come to your party, but…,” you can be fairly certain that they aren’t coming.
The last thing we couldn’t help but note was the hypocrisy displayed by many of these writers on virtually every level possible. If asked about “hate speech,” I’m certain that every negative responder would decry it. Yet many of them had entire websites dedicated to mocking and attacking Christianity in the most abusive ways they could come up with. Many insisted that women should be free from oppression, then proceeded to cuss out a sweet stay-at-home grandma who was just trying to celebrate her silver anniversary. They argued that women should have their own voice, but repeatedly and systematically tried to block my wife’s blog on Pinterest. They insisted that women should make their own choices, then venomously berated my wife for making hers, calling her life “worthless” and her choices “disgusting.”
The message they sent was clear: “Don’t let a man abuse you… that’s our job!”
What is amazing to me is that, through it all, my wife has maintained her serenity. I asked her whether she were bothered by all the angry comments, and — here again — her response speaks volumes to her character.
So that is what we have committed to do. We are praying that their hearts and eyes would be opened and their lives would be blessed.
Jesus said, “Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you.” (Matthew 5:44)
If you have been following this blog and understand the concept of unconditional love, we invite you to join us is praying for those who need it most. Pick a name or two from the negative responses and lift them up in prayer over the next week or month or year.
If — on the other hand — you hated these blogs, feel free to send us a railing reply. We’ll be happy to add you to our prayer list!
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Filed under: Current Events, Uncategorized | Tagged: anger, bless those who curse you, blog comments, character, hypocrisy, letters, list for husbands, reactions, relationships, respect, silver anniversary, we see things as we are | 1 Comment »