How I want to be released from pride! There for a while I thought by grace I had been fully released from my pride. The kind of pride I am speaking of is a false pride that confines me to being miserable. Pride is the self-centered way of being that blinds me to what is happening around me. It creeps in and then I look around to find I have lost perspective of the grace poured out on me.
I have several friends who write BLOGs. Many of them write on theology. I was reading one this past week on Orthodoxy. That is, literally, right thinking or right teaching. (A quick Latin lesson: ortho being right and doxy being teaching, or thinking). My friend rightly points out the importance of right teaching. It is critical. Yet the danger lies in what Paul points to in 1Corintians 8:1. “Knowledge puff up but love builds up.” For the longest time I thought that this verse meant that love builds up the other person, but now I am not so sure. I believe that love builds us up every bit as much, if not more, than the person we love.
This brings me to the idea of orthopraxis. Ortho meaning right and praxis meaning practices, and this combines the idea of right practices or right behaviors. All this ortho talk makes me think of orthodontics—right teeth. Ha! But seriously, for me the focus is not just right knowledge but also right practices. Knowledge comes in the doing, and it is a deep knowledge.
Jesus knew the only way we would understand some things is through doing. “so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13:4-5) Jesus then asked them; “do you understand what I have done for you? … I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Sometimes the only way we can know something is to practice it. We can only see the wisdom in the practice. Jesus gave his disciples an example. He washed their feet. He spoke in actions. I think he was giving his disciples a right practice.
Foot washing was a servant’s job, yet the maker of the universe washed his disciples’ feet. Then Jesus said “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” Pride has no place in the kingdom of Jesus. It blinds us. Chris Tomlin wrote a song that expresses what Pride will stop us from obtaining.
Caught in the half-light, I’m caught aloneWaking up to the sunrise and the radioFeels like I’m tied-up, what’s holding me?Just praying today will be the day I go freeI want to live like there’s no tomorrowI want to dance like no one’s aroundI want to sing like nobody’s listeningBefore I lay my body downI want to give like I have plentyI want to love like I’m not afraidI want to be the man I was meant to beI want to be the way I was madeMade in Your likeness, made with Your handsMade to discover who You are and who I amAll I’ve forgotten help me to findAll that You’ve promised let it be in my life
In becoming a servant I become a blessing and I receive the blessing. In knowing that, I can lay my pride down and walk away, without looking back.
Rev. Patrick Evans
