Sunday, I attended church at the First Baptist Church in LaPlace. The pastor, Paul Naylor, is one of my best friends.

His message was about humility.

After the service, I told him, “You did a good job,” but, sarcastically, said, “I really didn’t need to hear it.” Knowing better, he just smiled.

The best definition of humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.

The opposite of humility is pride. When I got home, I decided to look up an old article that I wrote on pride. Chuck Colson describes it best in his book, Born Again, and I quote:

“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free, which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards.

“I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. There is no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

“The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind.

“It is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together. You may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But Pride always means enmity — it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.

“In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people. And, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

“For Pride is spiritual cancer. It eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or ever common sense.”

If you have any questions or comments, please write Harold Keller at Get High on Life, P.O. Drawer U, Reserve, LA 70084, call 985-542-8477 or email hkeller@comcast.net.