Humblebrag

“Pride is best buddies with insecurity.”- Kyle Idleman

Kyle Idleman states in Chapter 3 of The End of Me that the key to understanding your inner Pharisee’s power is that your inner Pharisee is all about performance.  In contrast, one of the central themes of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is: God looks at the heart.  The heart is the true measure of what we are.  Performances are too easy to fake.

According to a new book on the subject, humblebrag is the practice of the art of false modesty- for example, a person posting about being exhausted (humble) after a wild and crazy vacation (brag).  The danger, especially in social media, is that others know only what you want them to know about you.

Just like the Pharisees, we can develop an “I” problem if anything other than Jesus becomes a foundation for our confidence.  It’s so easy to point to what we do, to stuff visible on the outside.  But Jesus is interested in who we are on the inside.  Only Jesus can see inside us, and there nothing can be faked.

Conversely, the tax collector shows us what “the end of me” looks like, as Kyle describes:

“He is broken, humbled by the majesty of God, and all he can do is plead for mercy and grace as he acknowledges the toll of sin in his life.”

Today’s question: What lessons in humility have you learned as a result of your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Taking ownership of our own humility”

Humblebrag

Pride is blinding

In Chapter 3 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman concludes his description of six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart.

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

6.  you catch yourself saying, “It’s not me; it’s you.”  Although this seems like the mirror image of a famous breakup line, the reference here is to the ability of the Pharisee’s twenty-twenty vision to detect the flaws of others.  The Bible, however, points out that pride is blinding.  Kyle wryly observes:

“You can’t see the pride in your life because of . . . well, because of the pride in your life.”

Recently, while Kyle was driving his kids to school, his son asked: “Dad, why do you always talk to the other drivers?  You know they can’t hear you.”  Pastor Idleman quickly realized he was a Pharisee on wheels.  His car has big windows showing every car but his own- and a tiny little mirror that shows him.

Other Pharisee indicators include celebrating someone else’s failures, obsessing over the opinions of others, and being utterly convinced that your opinion is the only one that is correct.  Pride, the author stresses, is “the ultimate issue of the human condition”- the mother of all sin.  The Pharisee keeps getting in because we feed our internal Pharisee and we let him/her grow.

Next, Kyle takes a look at what makes our inner Pharisee so powerful.

Today’s question (From Kyle): In what ways have you caught yourself behaving like a Pharisee?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Humblebrag”

Pride is blinding

Define fair

Today Kyle Idleman continues his description of six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart (Chapter 3, The End of Me).

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

3.  you catch yourself saying, “It’s not fair.”  Pastor Idleman emphasizes there is a major question here: how do we objectively define fair?  A lot of things are going to seem unfair if we feel we are more deserving or entitled than those around us.

Kyle supplies the following clue: if you have a hard time celebrating with others in their successes or victories and if you lack gratitude for the good things in your life, you’re probably suffering from a case of pride.  And if you feel entitled and discontented, you have no reason to be thankful for anything.

4.  you catch yourself whispering, “Did you hear about . . .” Gossip tends to put others in their “proper” place and underscores how superior Pharisees are.  Gossip provides a convenient stepping stone on our quest to be king of the mountain.

5.  you catch yourself saying, “I don’t need anybody’s help.”  Pastor Idleman observes that the Pharisee in the parable never asks for God’s help.  He’s got everything under control and checked all the boxes off- fasting, tithing.  The Pharisee is convinced God couldn’t get along without him.  Pride blinds us from realizing our desperate need for God.  If your prayers are filled with complaint and self-justification, you may have a pride issue.

Today’s question (from Kyle): In what ways do you take ownership of your own humility?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Pride is blinding”

Define fair

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

In Chapter 3 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman describes six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart.  The first two symptoms are discussed today.

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

1.  you catch yourself saying, “You aren’t going to talk like that to me!”  When pride takes over, we become defensive.  We’re unwilling to listen to criticism or correction.  It’s like undiplomatic immunity.  A prideful attitude also assumes a hierarchy in which we outrank the other person.

Pastor Idleman adds we might be thinking no one is offering us advice because they can’t find anything to criticize.  The truth may be closer to this: no one is offering us advice because they know it won’t go well if they try.

2.  you catch yourself saying, “I’m not going to be the one to apologize.”  Kyle cautions that the proud are magnetically attracted to conflict.  Solomon wrote in Proverbs 13:10: “Pride only leads to arguments.”  Squabbles can become epic because apologizing requires humility.

Forgiveness brings on the agony of defeat.  Proud people obsess about being undefeated in arguments and love to wait out the worst disagreements.  They may hold out for decades hoping everything blows over.  In the unlikely event a proud person apologizes, he/she will qualify that apology: “I’m sorry- but . . .”  And that type of apology never seems to work.

Today’s question: Have you ever dug in your heels and refused to apologize?  What was the result of your decision?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Define fair”

You may be a Pharisee if . . .

Your internal Pharisee

“God, I thank you that I am not like other people- robbers, evildoers, adulterers- or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I have.”- Luke 18:11-12

Kyle Idleman continues Chapter 3 of The End of Me with a discussion of The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14).  Pastor Idleman states people looked up to Pharisees because they were committed to Hebrew law and were likely to be upstanding, educated, and influential.  Although the Pharisees began with good intentions, eventually their faith became defined by an “unbearable, infinite collection of dos and don’ts, mostly don’ts.”

Luke clues us in that Jesus’ audience consisted of people  “who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else” (v.9).  Kyle observes that when we read such a description, we almost immediately assume Jesus is talking to someone else.  However, as soon as we assign negative descriptors to others, we become the very people Jesus is addressing.

The issue in this parable is pride versus humility.  Pastor Idleman explains:

“Fake humility expresses itself in a pride that is obvious to everyone but the speaker. . . . Ultimately our words betray us, no matter how much we guard them.”

In the next several blogs Kyle discusses six verbal symptoms of a prideful heart that indicate an internal Pharisee is about to flow out of our mouths.

Today’s question: How has your internal Pharisee been displayed following your vocation loss?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “You may be a Pharisee if . . .”

Your internal Pharisee

Spit first. Dig second.

“God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.”- Matthew 5:5 (NLT)

Kyle Idleman opens Chapter 3 (“Humbled to Be Exalted”) of The End of Me with this important avalanche survival tip: Spit first.  Dig second.  Pastor Idleman points out that one of the biggest mistakes people make when buried by tons of snow in an avalanche is digging blindly to get out.

Once someone is covered with snow, it’s almost impossible to tell which direction is which.  Gravity, however, still applies.  The solution is to push the snow away from your face and spit.  The direction gravity takes your spit determines your position.  For example, if you spit and it lands on your face, you know you’re facing up. which is a good thing.

Pastor Idleman observes that when Jesus came on the scene as a rabbi, directional confusion was rampant.  In “the fullness of time” Jesus came to set the compass for all time.  Yet, to twenty-first century ears, Jesus’s third beatitude seems ironic.  To our culture, it looks more like CEOs, movie stars, and professional athletes have dibs on inheriting the earth.  Jesus countered this misperception in Luke 18:14 as well:

“For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

In order for this to happen, Kyle asserts that we need to deal with our inner Pharisee.

Today’s question: What Bible verses keep you headed in the right direction?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Your internal Pharisee”

Spit first. Dig second.

Blessing hidden in the shadows

“There’s nothing life can throw at us that God can’t use to draw us closer to him.”- Kyle Idleman

In Chapter 2 of The End of Me, Kyle Idleman observes that it’s human nature to do everything one can to stay away from suffering in the first place.  But we take things one step further when suffering inevitably hits.  We do everything possible to stay away from mourning.  And when we do catch ourselves mourning, we embrace avoidance behaviors to do all in our power to make mourning go away.

Pastor Idleman refers to this as a “grim quest to turn that frown upside down.”  However, Kyle explains, that frown won’t go away because gravity keeps tugging at the edges.  Rather than mourn, we shift our efforts to getting over it.  In fact, a man named Jeff Goldblatt founded Get Over It Day (March 9th).

Kyle counters that Jesus wants us to realize we can find incredible blessings hidden in the shadows- but that blessing only may be visible through the lens of our tears.  Through the unique focus of those tears, the intruder begins to look strangely like a guest.

When adversity hits, we can’t see anything bigger than our loss.  The truth is God more than fills that space, including spaces we didn’t know we had.  Kyle concludes:

“. . . those who follow Jesus find that their pain is not wasted.  There is a blessing that seems totally illogical.  It requires climbing to the bottom of the deepest pit, without a flashlight, venturing far into the darkness.  But the blessing is there, and it’s worth everything.”

Today’s question: What Scriptures have helped you find blessing hidden in the shadows?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Spit first.  Dig second.”

Blessing hidden in the shadows