![]() Henry Cloud and John Townsend best describe boundaries in their book Boundaries with Kids, “A boundary is a ‘property line’ that defines a person it defines where one person ends and someone else begins. In response, understanding personal boundaries for time, rest, and self-care, and taking care of the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit are excellent places to steward my body and mind as I move forward in practicing humility. However, in practice, this is a difficult concept and again, I find myself asking how to put others ahead of myself and not sacrifice mental and emotional wellness by dedicating too much time and energy to focusing on others. When put into this biblical perspective, it seems so easy to simply value others over myself. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves (NIV, 2011). Christ’s example in Philippians 2:5-11, which Paul tells the Philippians to imitate and specifically Philippians 2:3 says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. When one realizes they have an issue with pride, they can start taking steps to focus on humility. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it” (Lewis, 1980, p. The first step is to realise that one is proud. ![]() “If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. This quandary is one that seems to be addressed partly in Mere Christianity. As I continue to learn more about myself, I question how I can focus on others, serve them, and not burn out from overextending myself. Currently, culture says to focus on yourself, while Christ says to focus on others and place them over yourself.Īs an Enneagram 2, I focus on others continually which is a gift, but it can also be a trial, sometimes to the point of losing my own identity and acquiring that of others. This observation about the humble man is so anti-cultural for present day America that when someone acts in this way, it can be a distinct representation of living out the Christian faith. He continues to say the man “will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all” (Lewis, 1980, p. He says when you think about him, you will think that he’s a cheerful, intelligent man who takes interest in what you have to say to him. This is part of knowing what humility looks like while pursuing Christian living, has been somewhat of an enigma for me. One part of the chapter that describes humility, and putting humility into practice is where Lewis writes about meeting a humble man. This deceiving nature starts with pride, and as seen in chapter eight of Mere Christianity, pulls Christians away from humility and living like Christ. Satan has always been a crafty devil who twists words, and emotions to convince someone to do something, pulling them away from God. ![]() It becomes a competition and the prideful person will look down on others, instead of caring about them (Lewis, 1980). He goes on to says that pride will make you delight more in yourself. Lewis says that pride becomes a spiritual cancer. This has even affected my devotional time, when I look at reading the Bible as what I can get out of the Bible, instead of seeing it as a way to get to know my Lord and Savior. I can frequently be self-focused, looking only at what I can get out of a relationship, or an experience, instead of how I can serve and love others before myself. As a result of pride in my own life, I have made things about me. Pride pushes out God and drives other bad behaviors, as we read in Mere Christianity. Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind” (Lewis, 1980, p. “According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride. Looking back, it could have been there in my life for a while, but the Holy Spirit has taken to revealing it to me recently. Pride can slowly sneak its way into someone’s life and mind. In this chapter, I learned more about how pride manifests as it reveals itself in one’s life, how to become humbler, and how these both lead to greater understanding of Christian faith. That is why I chose chapter eight, “The Great Sin” from C. ![]() This last year I realized how prideful I had become, and this realization did not make me happy. Because the two helps others and gives of themselves, they are one of the types that can battle with pride as their core weakness. Twos are helpers who will help anyone, even if they do not ask. Type two is what I identify with, and the biggest downfall of type twos is pride, says Enneagram expert, Beth McCord (McCord, 2020). A personality typing system called the Enneagram classifies every personality into nine types.
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