Thinking Too Highly of Oneself

"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." T.S. Elliot

Proud… because life is good

That’s not my grandchild in this pop-meme. But I have one the same age, making the same expression lately.

What does it signify? What are they feeling? He’s not an unruly kid, my grandson. Quite the opposite. He thinks and reacts using his own independent mind, having gathered information from his life of twenty months in a two-parent active (as in physical workouts) family, who love him dearly and train him up in the way he should go.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. — Prov 22:6

Which way is that?

Probably the way very few of us have succeeded in, in recent generations, due to early compulsory indoctrination programs and Marxist-socialist geared engineering that has effectively dumbed down western civilization, re-written our history, and conditioned us, Pavlovian style, to accept the New World Order of things currently being implemented.

How to circumvent this programming and execute a different plan of action? Consider their pattern: monopolize and drive human chattel from birth to the grave… and do the opposite. Easier said than done, granted. They’ve captured every industry, forcing us to depend somewhat on them or struggle independently upstream against the current.

In my family, that took the form of home births, home cooking and charismatic religious instruction, until public re-education took hold and re-shaped our perspectives. My five sibs either did not marry, did not have children, or delivered their babies in hospitals, where sick people go. One sib died at home because dad’s faith for healing failed.

I was the exception. I did graduate from SIMT (State Institution to Manipulate Thought), but at the age of 21, heard and believed the gospel of Christ. The Spirit of God in you has the power to begin forming you into his image and for his purpose.

When I fell for my husband, we did not communicate what plans we should make for starting or structuring a family. He was on a trajectory of success as a celebrated chef and restaurateur, and I left my field to join him. Our family life, among many memorable and fun times was, nevertheless, defined by reacting to circumstances, spontaneous one-parent decisions, and touch-and-go. The larger story is written here.

My daughter and her husband did rather communicate their ideas for rearing children and it started with a healthy, planned pregnancy, mid-wife assisted (birthing center) birth, and a stay-at-home mother preparing nourishing foods and making the home environment an inviting place for dad to return to. Both are cognizant that a child cannot raise himself and cannot be whole, watched over by a purple-haired “person” with tattoos, and on their cell phone half the time. If he is not led, instructed and corrected by the father; and nurtured tenderly and attentively by the mother -- who the father leads with love by Christ’s example to the church -- he will, inevitably, lose his way.

Communication, with humility, is key.

I’m not saying my daughter and son-in-law are not without their own defects. They are young and learning how to face adversity within the personalities they inherited from their impaired upbringing. Each carries their own baggage into the marriage and into the home. Overall though, they recognize that in practicing healthy, honest communication, praying together, and regular study of the pages of that wonderful and wise Book, they can set themselves up for future success and family cohesion…

And… hope to avoid the biggest pitfall people face today who do not know themselves well: learning to overcome the penchant to think too highly of themselves, and the underlying need to have others think well of them. This distasteful character flaw rears its uncomely head when, in a conversation, that party focuses entirely on themselves and their “expert knowledge” in the subject at hand.

Another character weakness may be the ability to lie to oneself to avoid facing an uncomfortable truth. Riding on their accomplishments and awards -- as if their legacy depended on it -- they become blind to or simply justify any failures in their personal lives. Why admit mistakes when you can call them by another name? Or shift the blame?

Both of these nasty traits, present in the ego of all human kind, can be traced to its original source; another created being who thought way too highly of himself, as the record will show. If they are listed in order of what God hates most, then avoiding that proud look and lying tongue would be a rather sagely matter of priority:

These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:

A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. — Prov 16-19

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. — Prov 16:18

Lucifer, son of the morning, personally experienced his fall from his exalted, heavenly position after pride was found in him. Losing that title, he then became known as the man of sin; the son of perdition, and Satan, among other descriptive titles. It’s worth noting the whole description of this once brilliant and splendid cherub positioned to serve in the mountain of God:

Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.

Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.

Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. — Ezek 28:12-18

This is the prince of the power of the air who drives the thoughts of men and tempts the way of the righteous.

From antiquity, men have used the imaginations of their hearts and minds to lift themselves up to think more highly than they ought. Forgetting God, they have sought to become powerful and wealthy; to rule over other men, and induce praise from them; to gain control over the resources of the earth and, ultimately, to set themselves up to be as gods… just as their father, the devil, set himself up to be a God:

Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:

Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:

By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.

They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die in the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.

Will thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.

Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. — Ezek 28:2-10

I had to quote all of this because of its prophetic significance. Interestingly, there is a great mystery here that Paul’s epistles shed light on. The passage reveals a secret having to do with the vocation the church, the body of Christ, is being prepared for that would place us… uncircumcised and strangers from the covenants of promise… in positions of authority left open when a third of the angels were cast down with Lucifer in his rebellion. A subject for another time.

The description we have in this passage clearly connects trafficking to riches: whatever is being trafficked leads to wealth. Use your imagination to what commodities have been trafficked and are trafficked today, and why the world has been structured the way it is: as a pyramidal industry in production of merchandise and trade, with the greatest concentration of wealth and sacred wisdom at the top.

Why did one third of God’s angelic creatures follow Lucifer’s lead? He has somewhat to offer his followers. But what is the ultimate end: destruction and perdition.

But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. — I Tim 6:9-10

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. — I Tim 6:6-8

Only a short while now and we will see the Lord in all his glory and power, taking vengeance on the wicked and on those who will reject Him. Personally, I’m waiting for that preceding day, when I’m taken up to be changed and given my new glorious body, receive mine inheritance and take up my sword to assist in destroying the enemy at large, and experience whatever else it would fail the heart to conceive what He has prepared for all those that love him.

Trust the gospel of the grace of God that can save you from being separated from Him, and his purpose to restore the original beauty, goodness and marvel God intended for the earth… while there is yet time.

Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: — 1 Cor 15:1-4