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We are taught in the church often to be aware of pride but honestly we aren’t taught well what pride really is. I would like to share my thoughts on what it really is. We are taught not to love ourselves because we are told that is pride. We are taught to be selfless so that we can care first for others. That is wrong. If we do not love ourselves first, we cannot love anyone else. And if we do not resolve our own needs first, we cannot help others with their needs and desires.
As you may know, I was not popular growing up. Because of being introverted and unpopular, I assumed that I was ugly and weird. Honestly, I think I was introverted because when I was made fun of, I took what others said as truth. I didn’t love myself. Girls treated me like a loser and girls I liked were even worse. I had many one on one conversational prayers with God. I remember those times dearly in my heart. God was not afraid to tell me how highly he thought of me. I remember one night when I had a hard day praying to him and telling God how hard life was. I physically felt an arm over my shoulders to comfort me while kneeling at my bedside. These experiences helped me learn to love myself and have confidence. I followed the example God set for me. By loving me, I loved myself. After I had much more confidence, I loved others. Now when I look at my pictures at that time, I realize I wasn’t that bad looking. Thinking otherwise was what others made me feel.
Confidence is NOT pride. Insecurity is pride. In that pride cave, people build a place of comfort where no one can hurt them so they want to stay there alone. Anyone who tries to correct them is an assault on their comfy cave-like mind-cave. They don’t want to change because that makes them exposed and susceptible to further harm. They don’t want others to see their weaknesses or who they really are.
Sometimes that can be seen as confidence because some people are great at putting on a show. They are able to act like they are awesome at everything and can take on any trial with no problem. They are not willing to be true to others because that allows others to know the real truth about them and attack.
Pride makes people really aware of what others think about them. They even care so much about what others say and think that they never let anyone see them as they really are. When people care too much about what others think, that allows them to consider the thoughts of others as truth, giving them power that they probably do not deserve.
Like I said before, you can’t love others if you don’t love yourself. You can’t take care of others if you yourself aren’t taken care of already. A man can not give money to others if he has no money of his own. You can only give to others what you have yourself, so loving others starts with loving your own self. You learn how to love others by loving yourself. awesome at everything and can take on any trial with no problem. They are not willing to be true to others because that allows others to know the real truth about them and attack.
Too many people think that self-love is selfish but I would say that it is actually selfless. Who do you know better than anyone else? Yourself, of course. By taking care of yourself, the model of taking care of others is completed. Even better, you can do so without the bias that comes from looking outward from the inside because you are looking inward from the outside on another person. In a sense by helping and loving others, we can learn how to treat ourselves better by looking inward at others from the outside and relating that to ourselves. But that starts with loving ourselves then loving others then truly learning to love ourselves better by knowing how to treat others and seeing our own self as a benevolent outsider does.
So being selfless doesn’t mean you do not take care of your own needs but it means you seek to serve others and do so not to the detriment of your own needs but in the context of your own needs. A needy man cannot take care of the needs of another until his needs are fulfilled. We should not call that needy man selfish because he is unable to supply for the needs of others until his needs are completed.