Pride

Following Elder Bednar's suggestion for how to study the scriptures, I picked up a missionary copy of the Book of Mormon and set out to mark everything that has to do with pride.  I was looking for evidence of pride.  More specifically, what is it.  Is there good pride. What do you do about it.  What it does to people.  I started this journey while on our RV trip to Nauvoo in April.  The exact date was the 17th.  I finally finished Christmas morning at 6:41am.

I didn't think this little experiment would take me 8 months.  I was reading through the BOM much faster than that before -even while studying other books.  This time instead of it being on my iPad it was a hard copy- which I think contributed to it taking me longer.  Another factor - teaching seminary.  Ideally I wanted a quicker read through so everything flowed together and was fresh in my mind.  I could pick up major story lines and themes easier that way as well.  Regardless of how long it took, it was still a great journey and I learned a lot about pride and, most importantly, about myself.

On Christmas day we always see a movie together.  This year it was the hobbit.  It must have been because I had just finished up my study of pride that I made this observation about the movie.  One I explained to my family while we were driving back home.  It was met with laughter and sighs because a movie can't just be a movie with me - I've got to find the gospel message.  It is pretty funny that this is who I've become.  I like to think of it as enduring quality though. :0)  What was this observation?  Pride comes before the fall.  There were all manner of disputations among them (the elves and dwarfs) and there was no unity.  They were ripe for destruction and it left them vulnerable to the enemy (the orcs).  They suffered great losses because of this and what is done cannot be undone - even though you get your pride back under control.

I'm really not sure what to say about the experience.  Except that there is a big difference between pride in ones self and pride in the work and glory of God.  Look at Nephi and Ammon for examples of that.  Man gets himself into trouble every time he forgets where credit goes.  When he starts thinking too much of himself.  Uchtdorf has a great quote about humility.  "Humility is not thinking less of himself,  it's to think of himself less."  When God is giving you the strength and power to conquer all, don't you want to let others know they can have that too?  That's not pride in yourself.

Another observation.  Every problem we have -hard hearts, slow to hear the word of God, etc... comes from pride.  Relying on yourself and the arm of flesh.  Worrying more about what man thinks instead of what God thinks.  You can also start thinking too much of yourself because of your righteousness and get lazy and self righteous.  What's the objective of a prophet and missionaries?  To call people unto repentance.  Can you repent if you are full of pride?  No, because you don't think you need to.  What happens when we don't repent?  We destroy ourselves with all manner of wickedness. We bring about our own destruction because we start lusting after power, shedding of blood, costly apparel, etc.  Think back now on our elves and dwarfs...and the orcs.  You can't possess charity, which is the pure love of Christ, when consumed by pride.  Pride doesn't allow you to think of others and to think of serving God.  Pride wants you to look out for yourself and say, "what about me?"  I like how Bilbow realizes this and wants to help stop the infighting.  Pride causes us to turn inward instead of outward.  Pride cares about who gets credit for things.  Pride cares about what makes sense to the teaching of man instead of Gods ways.  We have to remember, (which pride causes us to forget instead of remembering) "God's ways are not your ways."

Bottom line.  Pride creeps into everything we do and everything we are.  We need to be aware of it- especially in ourselves.  Living in the celestial kingdom requires us to live the law of consecration.  You've got to have stripped yourself of all manner of pride to pull that off -which you need the atonement for because you can't pull this off by yourself.  You've got to be open to knowing what your weaknesses are and working on them.  That means we've got to admit that we have them.  dun dun dun.  That also means we've got to acknowledge that everyone else has the same problem we do when it comes to pride and weaknesses.  But, just as the Lord has promised, he makes weak things become strong and then the real shaping begins with our souls and the more we become like our older brother, Jesus Christ.

Next up?  I'm not sure.  Maybe the character of Christ, promises, or prayer.  I know what I wrote doesn't seem like much, but I assure you that the changes that occurred in me over this process cannot be put into words.  The goal isn't to give you the cliff notes so you don't have to take the journey yourself, but to spark enough interest that you want to take the journey.