pride comes before a fall

I had been dredding this weeks teaching ´Relationships´. everything in my past had been touched on so far either directly or indirectly and the timing was ironic the week I was set to see my dad I would be made to sit through teaching on relationships, no doubt all about your mistakes, failings and rejection of course some undignified red faced sit in the centre point and laugh synarios your paranoia loves to tease you over, and to top it off i had a cold which seemed to be manifesting as man flu - i was dying.

The teacher a small rounded guy from canada seemd harmless enough but I was just about at breaking point my nerves for wednesday didnt leave much room for anything else to be pushed right now. Much to my surpise though he opened with humour and talk of your relationship with god. Christianity is a relationship with god. he went on your view of yourself would affect every relationship you have with others. that was it, i knew it was coming.

But between the few shifts in bed resting with an mp3 of spanish I herd lectures on dying to self, love being kindness and patience, it wasnt quite the cop out it seemed though. It had been like a splinter that you wanted gone and you have prepared yourself for someone to take a needle and tweezers but to you horror they werent going to cause you pain becuase they werent going to remove it. I was almost frustrated that he wasnt touching the roots of things that hurt.

It was the last two days of the week when I was walking on cloud nine afterseeing my dad that the teaching got good, All love is vulnerable, if you have a poor image of god you will struggle to be intimate with him, we need to be disciplined but discipline is not more important than your relationship with god. conviction of the holy spirit was warning you were doing something inconsistant with your hearts desire - to be close to god. The last two days started to build.

Idolotry was when you start to de-value god in your life and value things or people higher leading to bad choices and inevitably hurt, if god is god and therefore pure he wants good for you and only good for you hence wanting the best for you, which if you keep your eyes on him he will lead you.

If relationship with god was so important so therefore was your relationship with others, how your doing with others was a good indicator of how your doing with god, how can you love god and yet reject people?

Everything went back to value, think that sin blocks out value? NO! they dont touch each other your sin distance you from god because your choosing your right of choice as higher than him causing distance in the relationship, your value is not ever effected! Not having a sense of value can be a roadblock, you spend time and energy raising your value in the eyes of other people becoming focused on self and competing for sense of value, this is pride.

Rejection feeds pride, pride is a boasting and bragging a keeness for others to know what you know, what youve done or where youve been, the desire for people to love you accept or respect you its your attempt to raise your value in their eyes. Pride starts with a defecit in value it can turn to complete narsacism or a poor me attitude a manipualtive i cant do anything right mentality which is designed for others to contradict and encourage in return.

Fear of man: walking through lie afraid of rejection to the point of walking on ice, a constant fear of rejection because of what you say do or act. Not playing sports for fear of being rubbish at it and therefore rejected, not singing out loud for fear of someone hearing you, judging and rejecting (in christian circles not singing in church, leading to an even greater fear of people thinking your not worshipping and therefore not holy) fear of praying out loud for people thinking your prayers arent good enough or not close enough to god and so pre-formulating prayers in your head) Just living for fear of what others think and consequently not following god first but what others think.

Unteachability or resistance to follow? seeing it as accepting a lower status, if you have had only a chain of bad leaders in life, education church or organisation even work, likelyhood is you need to check your pride. Broken trail of reltaionships? nothing breaks relationships quicker than pride, its selfish and about you.

Intimacy is achieved through kindness, patience, valuing that other person more than yourself, not being jelous, extending grace and getting rid of pride. As the lesson finished I sat slightly blown away it had struck every cord in my spine so uncomfortably that i wanted prayer but finally this was teaching that didnt wish-wash over anything. I had no idea I struggled so much with pride, but when hed described it i felt like he was describing everything i hate about myself! something that when other people complement or praise you, you think íf only you knew me´this was that very side he had described. It was a vicious circle, events of your past leaving you feeling worthless, fear of rejection resulting in actions of pride which results in: fear of exposure which results in: fear of intimacy which results in: rejection of people, which results in: rejection of you compounding everything you were scared of in the first place.

I wanted rid of every proud thought, action and mentality, I always thought the darker side of my personality was surpressed grief something I was so terrified they would dig up here and make me deal with that i had started smoking and drinking in the build up to coming out here, but it turned out to be just a symtom of the past, simply a block in relationship with god that could be got through.