Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to Shifts and Ladders. You know who it is. It's Ryan Robinson. Glad you could be with me today. I want to talk about the very thing that can actually lead to the success that you're looking for. In fact, it might be the very thing holding you back.
[00:00:37] And again, it actually holds a lot of us back at times. And because it does, it's something that is commonly talked about. Well, we'll say commonly talked about. It's commonly expressed but never really addressed. And that is the issue of pride.
[00:00:58] Pride.
[00:01:00] What is pride? What is pride?
[00:01:04] I got the Websters, so we can go to the Webster's Dictionary to talk about what pride is. But succinctly, pride is an extreme focus on oneself and is often considered the first sin or the root of the first sin. So pride basically says, I'm the only thing that matters in the moment.
[00:01:33] You're trying to protect yourself for whatever reason, or you think that everything is about you.
[00:01:42] And when you go into the room you think is actually about you. When you leave the room, you think everybody should be leaving because you left the room. Like, that is kind of the. I would say some of the extremes that ego actually brings out are pride. In this case, pride is something that can destroy you think about. Well, there's a lot going on right now in the world, but a lot of people who are suffering from pride and ego believe that they're the only thing.
[00:02:16] That only person, excuse me, that has an answer for everybody.
[00:02:21] They are the cat's meow. They are the cat's meow.
[00:02:25] They are actually every. They feel like they have answers for everything. So you can't teach them anything.
[00:02:32] Like, you literally cannot be taught anything because you believe you know it all.
[00:02:41] And Bible says, actually, I'm. Pull up. This is my John Maxwell leadership Bible. Actually, I got this when I got on. Got ordained, gosh, several years ago. And I keep going back to Proverbs. But Proverbs is extremely important.
[00:02:58] The Bible is important as well as in its totality. But there are wisdom books that are in the Bible. And the Bible says, if any of you lack wisdom, ask of God, who freely and liberally gives. But you first have to believe that you can receive from him, that you can receive wisdom.
[00:03:22] And I cannot multitask the proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel. To know wisdom and instruction, to perceive of. Perceive the words of understanding. To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment and equity. To give prudence to the simple and to the young man, knowledge and discretion. A Wise man will hear and increase learning. And a man of understanding will obtain wise counsel to understand a proverb and an enigma, the words of the wise in their riddles. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
[00:04:09] So this is actually the first space in the book of proverbs that creates a separation between who is wise and who is foolish.
[00:04:22] And he clearly says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And that means you have reverence for.
[00:04:32] You have reverence for your parents. Some of you. Some of us do.
[00:04:36] But there's reverence for. Or a healthy fear of. You could potentially get in trouble of something of some sort when you're a kid, right?
[00:04:47] Because there's a level of respect there. You don't know everything yet you recognize. Like, I probably shouldn't mess with them, right?
[00:04:56] But pride actually elevates yourself, elevates itself and says, you know what?
[00:05:07] I actually can take you.
[00:05:09] No, you probably couldn't. Maybe you could. But when you elevate yourself, you're literally saying that my opinion is actually the only opinion that really matters. You're closing yourself off on opportunities, better ways and greater ways to think about situations and circumstances. And you actually kill any opportunity to get help from anyone. You are left alone to handle all of the business. And unfortunately, many people are in this place because they don't want to say that they were wrong.
[00:05:52] Many of you listening are in a place because you were not willing to be wrong. I was in a place like that. I just began to start doing this thing. Whenever I think I am certain about a particular outcome or I'm certain about a perspective, I have to start to begin to think to myself, you know what? I actually might be wrong.
[00:06:18] I may know enough, but I don't know everything completely. I might be wrong on certain things.
[00:06:25] And to be able to say, you know what? I might be wrong shows a level of humility. And that, in this case in the Bible, is the antithesis. It's the opposite of pride.
[00:06:39] Humility, way better than pride. Because I can teach somebody who's humble. You can't teach anybody that's prideful. And when you have that much pride, you literally cut yourself off from relationship with people because you think that your ideas, your perspectives are better for everyone than other individuals. So you never get the input you need. You never get the collaboration that could garner better opportunities. You just rely on you.
[00:07:12] And that one has no fun. But two, it's one of the things that God despises. So I'm gonna get to some of the scriptures here, but there's several examples in the Bible of pride. But there's a couple.
[00:07:27] And we'll get to this in a, in a, in separate podcast. But there are some characters, the Bible that are examples of what not to do.
[00:07:44] The Bible is really good at sharing with us what to not do, but also giving us examples of what to do once we learn what not to do. Okay, so a couple Bible verses. So we've been talking about Proverbs, Proverbs 16:20. I've said it in a previous podcast, but I'm gonna say it here. Pride comes before destruction. A haughty spirit before a fall. If there's pride present in your life, you are on the right. The route, the route, the way to destruction. Haughty, same thing. Haughty spirit comes before a fall. If you think that you have all the answers, best believe you're going to trip. You just don't know everything. It is inevitable that you're going to do that. Next scripture. Proverbs 11, verse 2. When pride comes, then disgrace. But with humility comes wisdom. Isn't it crazy that we learn the most when we have humility?
[00:08:50] When you hear people that are coachable, when they're able to listen and you see it on tv, we see it all the time of people that are so certain about their perspectives and their ideas. I'm thinking about, oh gosh, I can't. It doesn't come to my mind. When people are so certain that there is no possibility for them to be wrong. The Bible clearly says disgrace will come. Now this is the crazy part about scripture like this. Well, the book of Proverbs, it is observations of wisdom. They're very matter of factly the wisest man to have ever lived, as the Bible has stated and the wealthiest as well states that any pride is not going to create the desired outcome you want in your life. Okay then in James chapter 4, verse 6, says God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. There's another chapter, another verse. I believe it's in First Peter it says, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, for in due season he will exalt you.
[00:10:13] This is the thing, man. I rather humble myself than to God. Humble me.
[00:10:21] I'm just going to keep that there. Most of the time people are saying, why is life kicking me, beating me down. It might be because you got to learn a lesson in humility.
[00:10:32] Most of the time we think we are in control of our own lives. And honestly we may think we are, but we can't make our heart beat. We can't make our eyes blink. We can't make our bodies bring in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Something that is dangerous. That's crazy. We bring in something good and we exhale something that's dangerous.
[00:11:02] That'll preach somewhere. I need to write that down. Somewhere. You need to write that down.
[00:11:08] I think it's so important for us to understand how much humility plays in the advancement of your growth.
[00:11:15] You have to realize that you need help.
[00:11:20] And this is one of the areas I've had a lot of challenges with growing up. And unfortunately, there are areas in my life where I'm very humble, but there's also areas in my life where I've been very prideful.
[00:11:35] Now, this is the thing about any kind of proverb or any, I would say anything in human nature.
[00:11:42] There's never a complete black or white perspective.
[00:11:46] We may have areas where we are absolutely humble in, but then there's areas of our lives where we have to learn humility, and we have to continue to learn it over and over. Maybe not to the level of intensity that we initially think, but over time we get a little bit of humility. You get. You get sat down a little bit. You get teased a little bit. Especially when you think like a presentation went well, or you're like, yeah, it went well. And then you, like, someone comes out and says, you know, that really wasn't all that good. It was good, but it wasn't that that good. And you're like, dang, that kind of hurt my feelings. You have to understand that humility is attractive to people.
[00:12:31] Pride really isn't.
[00:12:33] You may be great, you may be incredible at what you do, whether it be at work, be at home, all those kinds of things. But once pride starts to enter into the picture, it starts to create this level of you don't know who I am kind of vibe.
[00:12:57] And unfortunately, it has a way of killing any dreams that we have. This is why I said it's the most important, one of the most important things to have in your mind. You have to know that at some point everyone's going to need somebody.
[00:13:15] The Bible says there's safety in a multitude of counselors, which means you have to be able to listen.
[00:13:23] There is a. The son of King Solomon, Rehoboam, was taking what was think the third king of Israel, and they were going through. The people in a particular area of Israel were going through a really tough season, and they had been working really hard. And summarizing this. But long story short, he wanted to see, like, well, how should I, as the king, in my first instance out here in public, what should my first responsibility entail?
[00:14:01] And so there's two sets of advisors. One set was his father's advisors. Again, these guys were around the most, the wisest man to live.
[00:14:15] Then there was another group of younger advisors that actually grew up with rare bone. Right?
[00:14:21] So he had a choice whether to listen to the ones who have seen the most or go to the ones who hadn't seen but had the highest opinion and the loudest mouths.
[00:14:32] Okay, so you guessed it. Rehbome chose to listen to his homies. And essentially it caused so much disruption within the kingdom that the kingdom of Israel essentially split because of Rehoboam's way of not listening. And those areas of not listening and being egotistical led to so many compromises. The Bible says that the wealth of Israel at the time of King Solomon was reduced down to, I think, about maybe a quarter of what it was. I can't remember the number, actually, the specific number, but pretty much most of the wealth that Solomon had accumulated was gone in five years because my man wasn't. Wasn't. Was not willing to listen. His dad was the most wisest person to have ever lived, and he didn't listen to him. So what do you think? People gonna listen to you? Your kids are always gonna listen to you.
[00:15:45] I mean, this man had the guy who wrote the book on wisdom, right? So why am I saying this? It's so important for us to realize that in order for us to grow in advance, we have to be in a position of humility, period.
[00:16:01] You will never go wrong with humility.
[00:16:05] Never go wrong. And we're going to talk about that in our next podcast. But I want to really nail down here that pride is destructive.
[00:16:16] It's like a ticking time bomb on Mission Impossible.
[00:16:20] It could literally destroy everything.
[00:16:25] But thanks be to God, we have someone who comes in, saves the day, and helps us to understand that we're not all that great. And we're going to need somebody.
[00:16:37] I think there's a song says somebody's I'm a nobody, trying to help everybody get to know somebody.
[00:16:47] Something along those lines. I can't remember the rest of the song, but you have to make sure that you are coachable and you can listen. Because actually, perhaps could it be that the deliverance, the joy, the financial success, and the peace that you're looking for may be in someone else's, might have been learned through someone else's experience, but you think you can go to TikTok and other places to get it while it might be sitting right next to you. We're going to talk about humility in the next one, but until then, share this podcast.
[00:17:27] Subscribe to it on YouTube. Share it with somebody. Pride is not a sexy topic by any means, but it's necessary for us to be aware that pride has destructive characteristics that could erode our lives if we don't deal with it. All right, thanks for listening. We'll catch you in the next one. Peace.
