HUBRIS--The Delusion of Pride--Feb 2007
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The next day she brought me a note with the following,
“hubris- wanton insolence or arrogance resulting from excessive pride or from passion.”
I was in the act of ministering to someone with the laying on of hands when I received this word the night before. Since we were all ignorant of the meaning of this word, I prayed something like,
“Lord, I break any negative effect of hubris, in Jesus’ Name.”
My soul has been greatly troubled by this word in the days following to the extent I have done some research on hubris and have written this with a heavy heart.
I have wondered if hubris is a snare in my soul, or is the bedrock of human presumption and foolishness against the will of God. Ancient Greek tragedy embodied hubris as an act of transgression or overbearing pride that offended the mythical Greek gods and led to retribution. Hubris is pride so delusional that it goes outside and beyond the parameters of human knowledge, action, or capacity to the extent that it is a direct violation of the will, and intrusion to the dominion of the gods.
Historical imperial hubris could be seen as a ruler so corrupted by his own power, position, wealth, importance, or authority that he makes presumptuous autocratic decisions which bring down the entire empire.
I was once watching a series on Henry VIII’s relationship with Anne Boleyn. He strode into her father’s estate into the presence of Anne’s sister, who was heavily pregnant with the king’s child and fainted when she saw him. King Henry came to the estate not to tend to the woman who was carrying his child, but to insist that Anne Boleyn give him her charms as well. The father of these girls could only submit to this ludicrous tyrant’s lechery or face death. Part of Henry’s attraction to Anne was that she stood up to him, and refused to be “the King’s whore.” She made some allusion to the King’s unreasonable demands. King Henry basically informed Anne Boleyn that he was the King anointed by God and that his word was the word of God.
Henry VIII dissolved his marriage to his faithful first wife, married Anne, who gave birth to the great English queen, Elizabeth I, and then beheaded Anne within 3 years because she did not give him a male heir, all the while deluding himself and bullying his subjects with the scepter of a supposed Divine mandate.
A royal horror series ensued, with Henry marrying and beheading prospective male baby incubators. One of his proceeding 6 wives died of the complications of childbirth of his only surviving son, who died in youth.
His last wife, more of a caretaker, survived the prematurely aged, diseased and debauched king. It seems Henry was a syphilitic. The unacceptable miscarriages, still births, and sickly babies that the debased tyrant blamed and killed his wives for were the result of his own arrogance and sin—hubris!
Thank God for democracy in our government!
Thank God for the liberty we have in Christ.
Another element of hubris in Greek tragedy seems to be the tolerance of the gods in its beginning stages. Hubris, especially surrounding the dynamics of ancient royalty supposedly overseen by the Greek deities, was viewed by the gods as a kind of youthful rite of passage—what we Christians would call the boastful pride of life. Kings and princes would be given a throne with life and death authority overshadowed in the unseen realm by divine oversight, observation, promotion, and protection. The gods would test the fiber and character of these chosen ones by how they handled themselves in the matters of rule, state, heart, and personal life. The faults and misdeeds of these emerging men and women would be seemingly overlooked for a season—they were being proven and assayed.
The Greek gods, when offended, became antagonists, and injected into the mind of the one who had lost favor, the noose of unbridled hubris. The vision and tools to rule became rope in the hands of the royal reject, whose delusional pride and blind presumption upon yesterday’s favor wove the self-strangling cord of foolhardy edicts and subsequent tragic events.
I can not help but draw parallels in Scriptural accounts of God’s dealings with His people. I wonder at many of the heartbreaking events in my own life, knowing full well that in some instances, I was the instigator of my own hurt, because I would not listen to truth or common sense. I often say in preaching that God will never make you do anything: you will live to wish to God you had obeyed if you disobey.
How hard it is to truly see the heart motivation! I can make anarchy against the humbling aspects of God’s dealings with me a religious mantra. I can appear strong. I can tithe anise and cumin and spices but omit the weighty things of the law such as mercy and truth. Such a façade may appear righteous and strong but is actually a cover for self-serving, weakness, and vulnerability.
Much of the correction we receive as Christians under grace is not the horrible judgments of the Law, or the caprice of fictional Greek deities. Sometimes God allows us to eat the bread we have baked. It is our own fault if we do not listen to His guidance in our choice of the ingredients we are using. The greatest chastening I have seen as a believer is eating the bitter fruit and disappointment of my own disobedience.
Ouch! That and receiving the truth of the source my own self-styled recompense is a greater test. I must remember that whatever I sow, I reap. My human nature will try to lash out and find an external enemy to blame for the bitter, gravel-injected fruit I am striving to eat. The truth is that I am the proprietor, manager, cook and main customer of a one-man, one-table restaurant. What I eat is what I fix or allow. If someone else throws poison in my dough, I don’t have to eat it. I can see the hand of others meddling in my kitchen—it is my own to which I am willfully blind.
The really scary part is that I am anointed by God as a Christian to influence the lives of others, and especially as a minister. I will feed others what I eat myself. This is why teachers bear the greater condemnation—we are anointed to teach others but have to live in and walk out obedience like everyone else. The defiling bitter root of blinding pride will not only be a thorn in my own, but in the side of everyone in my sphere of influence.
We Christians seem to have mastered the art of the double-standard. Years ago I read this bumper sticker on the car of a very troubled young woman I was counseling,
“If you love something let it go. If it doesn’t come back, kill it.”
I watched this woman kill opportunity, kill a marriage, abuse children, embrace destruction, and systematically undermine her entire life because she had to be a victim. She had to blame others to justify the bad taste in her mouth. The pride of her pain was its own motivation. The humility and fear of accepting failure, weakness, imperfection, and the subsequent flood of grace and healing was too threatening to pierce the pride-armor.
We read the Scriptures and like to talk about love, and forgiveness, but so often our expression and acceptance and of this or any Holy truth becomes self-emanent out of the preferred will of God we embrace and tolerate. Convenience to me and my world being the center of God’s plan is the balance of truth, not the Scripture nor the conviction of the Holy Spirit. This is hubris, believing that what suites me and my universe is the will of God. Thus, anything or anyone conflicting or disagreeing with the center of my self-emanent reality is not the will of God, and I must fight people and circumstances which are contrary.
Raising children is a great example of this is the schism of double-standards. All the experts on handling teenagers in the Church have toddlers, or have never raised children. If my child is in difficulty or does something contrary to the image I have raised him to project, then my child is under attack by the enemy. I must find and fight that enemy, whether natural or spiritual. I could write several examples of people I have hurt and alienated defending my children in normal circumstances of growing up. I could not accept that my child would do or be anything less than everything I had expected for him. Someone had to pay or to be more wrong than him.
The hard fact is that I am stone-throwing when my child is rebelling against the will of God in his life, or is simply immature and soulish.
The underlying bitter bread of this double-standard is that I am condemned by my own heart because I have secretly believed the children of others were bad kids and their parents failed Christians when their children did the same or less than my own beloved offspring. I have occupied the judgment seat. I have leavened my bread the self-rising way, elevating my status on the weak and broken backs of others.
There are two basic deceptions of hubris in this scenario familiar to most Christian parents. First, I have imprisoned my child in the false reality that they exist to make me proud of my parenting skills. They must project the vision of my success as a parent and believer, especially in the eyes of others. They must not make me ashamed. They must not be imperfect. Even though I may secretly know my child is human, no one else had better touch his frailties. I have a list of all the faults of those who would make me or my child look bad. I am justified and have the ammunition to defend my pride and to deny that sin is crouching at my door.
So did Cain. Under what pretense do I murder my brother?
Behind the façade of some of the greatest offense and anger I have projected towards others in dealings with my children, I have been secretly relieved my kids were not as bad as me when I was their age! Thank God!
Secondly, because I am the center of the self-emanent truth of God, I think I am better at child-rearing than others and that my children are better. I can easily defend my hubris by looking on opposition to my truth as noise from lower life forms.
The saddest part is that I will face the truth of my own heart and the reality of imperfection in this life as the chain of events I have created and released gathers weight and speed. Each succeeding seed will be larger with bigger messes and worse circumstances.
I will eat bread from my bakery.
Hubris is hard on the outside and appears impenetrable. It is only a thin crust of survival and self-defense. The inside is hollow and contains only fear. The foundation I stand on in hubris will not bear any weight for long. After all, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Hubris is the precursor to great crumbling in our lives, whether the outcome takes moments, days, years, or a lifetime. Look at I Corinthians 12: 22-25,
“But instead, there is (absolute) necessity for the parts of the body that are considered the more weak. And those (parts) of the body which we consider rather ignoble are (the very parts) which we invest with additional honor, and our unseemly parts and those unsuitable for exposure are treated with seemliness (modesty and decorum), which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so adjusted (mingled, harmonized, and subtly proportioned the parts of) the whole body, giving the greater honor and richer endowment to the inferior parts which lack (apparent importance), so that there should be no division or discord or lack of adaptation (of the parts of the body to each other), but the members all alike should have a mutual interest in and care for one another.”
The story I am about to relate I have been told several times, but have never seen it written—perhaps one of you has it in a more accurate and fact relevant form. If so please send it to me.
This took place during the reign of one of the Roman emperors who was particularly disposed to persecute Christians and to tax Roman citizens to the hilt. Romans were prone to try to hide wealth from the state for this reason. The Romans wanted a picture perfect world. They despised poverty, physical weakness, or deformity of any kind. Abortion, infanticide, and the disposal of unwanted or handicapped babies was common practice. Unwanted babies, as well as the sick and diseased were placed outside the gates of the city to die of exposure. The poor were so much chattel under the feet of the rich and powerful.
Informants were paid, and word got back to the authorities that a leader of the forbidden Christian sect was boasting of the great wealth and treasure he and his congregation possessed.
Corruption also abounded, and greedy officials saw the way to build status, by busting this group of Christians, and to get rich by seizing their gold and silver. A group of soldiers burst into an underground meeting, demanding to see the now legendary treasure trove.
The Church leader smiled, and spread his arms towards his people, showing the orphans, the widows, the beggars, the retarded, the crippled, the outcasts, and said,
“Here sirs are the great treasures Jesus has entrusted us with!”
Can you imagine the shock, dismay, spiritual blindness and disgust these powerful men felt?
These human treasures are the very ones we seek to minimalize and back-row in our image and status fellowship. I could make a copious list of examples of people trashed in Christianity because they were “not what the church was looking for.” I think many of them were probably angels.
When I first was saved, I lived in a house ministry that took in single men. There were many of us in a large home manned by a Godly older pastor, and maintained by older sisters who lived on the same property. We fellows were of different ages and background, but all in need of Jesus. One of the men there was from a wealthy family—he obviously had “breeding and background”. He was somewhat refined and sometimes volunteered to cook for the group—we all took the evening meal together as part of the communal fellowship of brothers.
Another man, one of the oldest, was barely five-feet tall—Little John. John had spent most of his life in prison and came from the direst of circumstances. He was really broken by his life—he had lost everything. He had no teeth. He had physical infirmities and some type of abnormality in his feet and legs which caused him to walk oddly. Most of his personal habits were shaped by years of prison life, including eating his food quickly. He had some breathing difficulties, and had no sense of taste, so he doused all of his food with hot sauce. He made noises when he ate.
Because of his past the only job John could find was the graveyard shift in a convenience store in the worst part of town. He was later found murdered on the job—he had put up a valiant struggle.
John took great pride in his job, and was slavish to detail. It was hard for him to relate to many people, and he was easily embarrassed. Rejection was all he had known.
One night, our refined brother fixed a gourmet meal for the rest of us to enjoy—he wanted us to savor and enjoy the fruit of his “sacrifice”. He was noticeable irritated when John did not want to try most of the dishes that had been prepared. John was a meat and potatoes man, plus he could not chew foods that were hard or not well done. The older sisters knew this and would cater to him.
Our chef was agitated when Little John began to cover his plate with red pepper sauce. He exploded when John hung his head over his food and began to snort and snurf and shovel it in,
“Honestly John, your table manners are so bad, the angels will put you at a little card table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb!”
John turned bright red and almost buried his face in the plate—there was a moment of awkward silence. Another man at the table said softly,
“Yes, and it will be right by the Throne of God!”
None of us knew Little John would soon be dead, stabbed over forty times!
It pays to have looks, money, and talent in Churchywood!
We say we love one another, but many of us carry the young woman’s bumper sticker on our heart. We try to kill what conflicts with self-emanent hubris. All you losers beware. I love you, but I will kill you if you don’t yield to my imminent domain! Vengeance is mine saith the god of my hubris.
Sometime ago, a Christian businessman I knew was in trouble. He asked me to pray for him, his family, and his business. I knew him when he was an employee and not a business owner. I knew him when his business was beginning and struggling. I knew him when he applied himself and was greatly blessed of the Lord. He entered into a season when everything he touched exploded into financial increase. They moved up in the world. They lived well.
I knew him when he became ego-centered instead of God-centered. His children were given the best of everything to the exclusion of others. The family now had the money to change their reality when it became unpleasant. I knew him when people became dispensable. I knew him when he began to make decisions that were totally alien to Scriptural concepts, yet he stated, were the will of God. I knew him when hubris took him into a place of pride and anger instead of humility.
His world began to be shaken. His foundation was hollow and filled with fear. He had experienced betrayal and trouble from others he had drawn near to him in the past. Trusted employees appealed to him for balance and reason. He branded them as traitors and demoted or dismissed them.
He surrounded himself with employees who were self-seeking and ruthless—they were demonically anointed to assist in this downward spiral. They told him what he wanted to hear, sifted the company for information, and corrupted what remained of unity in the business—they were spies who shifted every word and presumed intention of their fellow employees to fit the fears of this businessman.
The brother became his own worst enemy.
His self-emanent truth was pushing him into a ditch. He began a mad search through his business to route out everyone he improperly discerned to be opposing him—someone else had to be the source of his trouble. After all, God had given him this vision of business and had blessed it. It was sliding in financial standing and status. This was an attack of the enemy!
I had a vision of him while praying for him I shall never forget.
I saw a dark forest, much like I would imagine a rainforest, with a thick canopy over head. Dim light dappled the floor; this was a shadow land unknown by most. There was a thick tangle of undergrowth and many little paths crisscrossing endlessly. I saw this man as half-beast, covered with hair, with a long tail, fangs and claws. He was a hunter, a beast of prey. He was on the trail of blood. I saw him search these paths in an instinctual frenzy, driven by something that was not human. He would stop and raise himself from all fours to sniff the air. I heard him say this,
“ I’m going to find it this time. I can smell it. I can’t see it, but I can smell it. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to find them. I have discernment. I’m going to tear them apart.”
He began furrowing down the circling, crossing paths gathering speed as he went. Suddenly he stopped. He saw a furry object protruding from under a branch. He growled and grabbed the unfortunate beast and began devouring it—with each bite he screamed and howled in pain. The beast he had seized and was devouring was his own tail!
The pain the manbeast felt made him angry. He believed he had found and was destroying the source of all his trouble. The more he hurt, the more he blamed what he assumed was an external foe. The more he ate, the more blood he tasted. The more blood he tasted, the more he sought it. The more he bit, the more he hurt. The more he hurt, the angrier he became and the more determined to destroy the source of his pain.
I watched this scene in terror. I asked the Lord when he would realize he was devouring himself and that he was his own enemy. The Lord told me this could take years, and that the pain would become very intense when he finished the tail and got to the trunk of his body. Then he would either have to face what was happening, or he would self-destruct.
Great sorrow filled me. Pride does indeed come before a fall. The noose of hubris is that many devour themselves in the name of defense and protection. I saw so many instances of myself through meditation upon this vision.
We must not forget the warning of James 3: 14-17 Amplified,
“But if you bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth. This superficial wisdom is not what comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual (animal), even devilish (demoniacal). For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition) there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices. But the wisdom from above is first all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is whole-hearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned—free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity.”
Christians must realize that not all spiritual discernment is from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals Truth—He is not the spirit of accusation, defilement, or fault-finding. I must question the source of my “wisdom” if I never see anything wrong with my ways, but always see the weakness and failures of others. What better way could Satan invent to destroy the servant of God than to convince him his own will was the will of God, and everything that opposes him is an attack of the enemy?
I say again and again that so much of our warfare is never ending because it is not Satan we are fighting! I believe it is a division in our own soul and spirit because we are opposing and being opposed by God in our pride.
One of the saddest elements of hubris in Greek tragedy was the ancient belief that whom the gods would destroy, they first drive mad. Ultimate insanity is to not allow God to reveal anything imperfect or against what I perceive is His will. So much of what we say is the will of God is anathema to the Cross.
Pride is madness. Unbridled pride is blindness. Pride which presumes to be the will of God is mad, blind hubris.
I am not a pastor, but if the Lord should ever lead me to pastor again, I have toyed with the idea of naming a fellowship “Broken Vessels”, or “Not Many Wise Ministries”. We are all so needy and dependent for more of Him. We will not create Utopia in this life.
The Body of Christ is at the precipice of a Jordan crossing.
We will not march over in our victory, authority, pride, and prosperity. The only governing power will be the Lord and the only control, our self-control.
Reformation will precede revival. We will make this crossing with a broken heart on bended knees. Each of us will see Him and ourselves in His perfect love and light. We will each mourn for all we have maimed and deformed in our hubris. We will marvel at the grace extended to us in our iniquity we embraced as the unction of God. So much of what I say is God is simply my flesh masquerading as a humble servant.
We will all wrestle with God before the breaking of the Day and will have our hubris thrown into our faces. We will have our nature changed and become limping princes on a rotted joint that will no longer support our weight or give us strength—what once supported our strutting about will cause great pain and force us to lean heavily on the Everlasting Arms.
If we refuse to deal with God in this season we will die on the wrong side of the River of God and walk in our strength in a nature unchanged. The fact we don’t limp will be our justification not to have crossed. You see, it simply can’t be the will of God for me to appear to be anything less than absolutely perfect. All those limping, weak, maimed examples of Christians must be those who have some fault before God. You see, I don’t limp. I look the way I’m supposed to. I am right with God. I am strong.
I have my teeth, I’ve never been in prison, I have perfect table manners, I have a life, I don’t make noises when I eat—I’m not like Little John. I am of full stature; I will not be at a little card table at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb!
Sometimes I wonder who I am really trying to convince, others, or myself. Is it really worth holding such gangrene together?
Could it be I am so fragile I can not bear any disagreement, not ever from God? Why do I strive so to be right?
Perhaps hubris is the wrong choice in a natural spiritual process of breaking and remolding. Jesus never changes. Everyone and everything else does. Perhaps a scalding, chapping, fraying season of hubris is inevitable in each of us until the boastful pride of life is broken—I hope not….breaking is much easier than crushing!
The really scary thing about hubris is that at the same time God is challenging His people about change none of us really wants, the enemy is visiting with apostasy. We are in the season of Jude and 11Peter.
Who actually sits on the throne of your heart? What bridles the motivation and intent of the reins of your soul?
What war are you actually fighting?
Is that the devil you are waging war against, or are you wrestling with God?
Am I strangling myself with a noose of hubris?
Have I chased my own tail until I have caught it?
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