If we are truly interested in fleeing Babylon and then building Zion, we need to thoroughly understand the similarities and differences between pride, which moves society towards Babylon, and humility, which leads us to Zion. Pondering President Benson’s landmark talk, “Beware of Pride“, it becomes clear that both pride and humility have two main components: how we relate to God, and how we relate to our fellowmen. Let’s look at pride first and then humility next time.
Pride Pits Us Against God
We can’t keep the First Great Commandment if we are proud.
Those who suffer with pride discount or openly reject God and/or His wisdom, thinking they know better how to run their lives.
President Benson, describing our relationship to God when we suffer from pride, said, “We pit our will against God’s…. in the spirit of ‘my will and not thine be done….’ The proud wish God would agree with them. They aren’t interested in changing their opinions to agree with God’s.”
Even as active LDS, we should ask ourselves whether we honestly seek the Lord’s current will for us and follow it. Or, do we go about our daily lives working towards goals we set for ourselves (or worse, goals society sets for us) with no thought for God’s desires for us?
Pride Pits Us Against Our Neighbor
We can’t keep the Second Great Commandment if we are proud.
If we suffer from the universal sin of pride, we set ourselves in opposition to our fellowman as well. We judge everyone as being either above or beneath us — not of equal worth. Because we believe our value in the hierarchy must be earned, we compete with our neighbors for the approval of those “above” us and the admiration of those “beneath”.
President Benson described it this way:
A summarizing chart:
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Elder Chantdown
September 4, 2013 @ 3:16 am
The real problem is that what we commonly call Pride and Humility are not what we think they are. Opposites are special relationships; two things so close that they are intimately linked in one. And ironically we find that the best and truly the only way to learn about one half is to learn from or through the other. We come to understand one side by understanding the other.
Anyone who will not accept Christ, the Son, as the union of opposites is doomed to serve one master while hating the other. The one master which they serve is Master Mahan (Master Destroyer). It’s called a secret combination because it’s members don’t even know with whom and in what ways they are combined. And the great secret is not kept by them but from them as they gather on either side of the conflict. That secret being: that contention is of the devil. So even as they choose the side called good they forget that “only one is good.” So if you’re seeing double, your eye is not single and that’s not good.
….cooperation is the antidote to competition.
…. We never get anywhere until we admit that humility and pride, like all opposites are intimately connected. And we should know by now that opposition in all things does not have to imply conflict in all things.
[ This comment was edited for charity. ]
Jesse
September 16, 2013 @ 2:36 pm
Elder C, thanks for your comment.
My experience studying pride and humility, as well as Zion and Babylon bears out your idea that “We come to understand one side by understanding the other.” That approach has resulted in nearly all the ideas shared so far here on this blog.
And I love your idea, “cooperation is the antidote to competition”!
Very well said. Thanks.