I’ve always carried an illusion with me. The illusion is that someday I will get things figured out and stop falling on my face, quit saying the wrong thing, and finally stop blundering my way through my days.

LOL. As if such a thing were possible.

There are people who seem so smooth, so knowledgeable, so not prone to falling on their faces again and again. These people make me think it’s possible. I’m just not one of those people, although I have a dream someday I will rise like the phoenix out of the ashes into some sort of calm, smooth, more beautiful version of Yoda.

When I mess up, it hurts…mostly my pride. I had a conversation today, and I felt like I said the wrong thing. I got home, and it began to haunt me: what I should have said, what I shouldn’t have said, over and over, round and round in my brain. The more and more I thought about it, the more upset with myself I became, mostly because I realized what I said hurt my image. I was afraid of how my words would make me look and how my words would make others think of me, whether they would like me anymore or not.

Do you know what wasn’t on my mind? Whether or not what I said really was the right or wrong thing, according to God. I was too caught up in my thoughts of what people were thinking of me that I didn’t even stop to consider the fact I had said the right thing.

This whole thought process got me thinking about my pride. I should be more afraid of it. Too often my self-image/pride drives my thoughts, words, and actions more than what God’s word tells me. It’s a scary realization.

On my own, my sinful nature is a twisted, twisted thing. It twists the truth. It twists my motivation. It twists my attitude. Left to its own devices, my pride quickly takes over as my mode of operation, a self-interested beast driving my life, my plans, and my decisions. Pride is not patient or kind. Pride envies and boasts. It’s rude. Pride is self-seeking, easily angered, and it keeps records of wrongs. Pride rejoices in evil, when it puts me on top. Pride will lie to save its image. And pride fails me again and again. But pride feels right because it comes naturally.

Pride also seems to make sense in this world. Look out for number one! If you aren’t watching out for number one, well, you’ll never be number one. In many cases, pride drives the beautiful to become more beautiful, the rich to become richer, the successful to have more success.

Humility and God’s ways often do not make sense. Humility and God’s ways often hurt my ego, asking me to give up my own desires, to sacrifice, and turn the other cheek. Humility asks me to say I’m sorry, to acknowledge my sinfulness and my weaknesses. In humility, I realize that this life isn’t about lining up trophies, winning awards for best-looking and most likely to succeed. And it isn’t about getting a little bit of fame or a whole lot of it either.

Humility readjusts my focus from this world to the next. What is see here is mostly smoke and mirrors, glittering distractions. Humility draws me to the realization that God is God, and I am not. But in that acknowledgement I also find comfort: I don’t have to run on the hamster wheel of pride, where there is never enough, where there is always fear. Where pride runs, humility can rest.

In humility, I know that I’m a sinner, and I mess up again and again. I know that I can never be enough. In humility, I know that Jesus is enough. He’s my “enough.” When I look to him, I see that my mistakes, my shortcomings, my sins are forgiven and removed. Everything I’m not is everything He is. Everything I need is found in Him. When I abandon pride, I can fully see the beauty of humility because it is the beauty of grace.