The Root of All Our Problems
one
Pride is the source of every sin therefore it is the root of all our problems.
Pride is the effort to prove your worth through accomplishments or some personal attribute, intelligence, strength, beauty, ability and so on.
The first step to overcome Pride, this effort to prove our worth through accomplishment or attributes is to realize it doesn’t work.
It doesn’t work because you can always be replaced by someone who has more accomplishments or more of the attribute you covet. And when you’ve been replaced your personal value goes to zero.
It doesn’t work because there is always someone better than you. I quit powerlifting competitively in college when I watched a 17 year old dead-lift 700lbs, easy. I saw it and said, “I’m done.”
And trying to prove our worth and make ourselves relevant doesn’t work because nobody cares about your accomplishments, talents or attributes. In fact, they will envy you and wish you didn’t have them. That way they will feel better about themselves.
The fact is, the people who love you unconditionally, value you the most, are those who don’t value you for your accomplishments or attributes. They just think you make the world a better place and they delight in you.
two
The second step to overcome Pride is to realize, believe and accept that God loves you.
God’s love for you means this: He wants you to exist. God delights in you. He thinks you make the world a better place just by being in it. Finally, to say God loves you means that he approves of you. God looks at you and says: It is good that you exist! How wonderful you are.
At the end of each of the first 5 days of creation, God looked at the world and saw that is was good. After he created us on the 6th day he said, “It is very good!”
three
God loves us unconditionally.
The core truth is that our existence is good and we have the potential for even greater goodness that God has endowed us with.
Goodness has two meanings: I love you just the way you are. You make the world a better place just because you are in it. But I don’t want you to stay the way you are. I want you to reach all your potential for goodness.
When I look at my newest grandson Elliot, I say to him, “I love you just the way you are. You don’t have to do anything to earn my love. But I do not want you to stay the way you are, an infant. I want you to reach all of your potential.”
Unconditional love thinks the person is good just because they exist. And they want them to grow and become the best human they could be.
four
If a person never believes they are good, that they make the world a better place just by being in it, when they think they have no intrinsic value, they begin to act as if it is true.
If we never believe we are really good, we will begin to loathe ourselves. A whole host of self-destructive tendencies follow in the wake.
But if we realize, accept and believe God loves us, that he thinks we are good and he approves of us. This will inspire us to want to grow to become the best humans we can be, virtuous, strong and loving.
So the greatest way to motivate people is to affirm their goodness and love them unconditionally.
five
We began with the root problem in the world. Pride the need to prove my worth by accomplishments or attributes.
We saw how this doesn’t work. So we turn to the Lord and ask him: What do you want us to do? And he responds, “I just want to delight in you. It is good that you exist. How wonderful you are.”
And the more I bask in His delight, the more I actually believe it and I want to become a better human.
But then I must go and do that for all those around me who are enslaved by pride. I must go to them and give them unconditional love. I must delight in them just because they exist and express to them that I think they make the world a better place. I should delight in others because this will inspire them to recognize their own goodness and to become a better human themselves.
That’s the mission!