Ego, the Good, Bad and Ugly

We all have an ego. We all have some level of self-pride. This can be a good thing but can very, very easily be a bad thing and bad can very, very easily turn to ugly.

The good: We wash, dress, maintain our composure, fit the part, take pride in our work and do our best, enjoy our God-given gifts and talents, be brave and courageous, write as if we know we have something important to say, speak as if we know we have something to contribute, helping at church to serve God for blessing you. These are all good things.

The bad: any of the and love good things magnified too much. For example, speaking as if only we have something to contribute, writing as if we know everything, bragging about our God-given gifts and talents, taking too much energy into appearance rather than spiritual development, helping at church to get applause. These are all bad things.

The ugly: treating people as if they do not matter, thinking we are the most important people in our house, room, company, band, church, family, whatever. This is a bad ego magnified to excess.

The way to keep our egos in the good department (which should be our goal in any healthy, thriving society, family, church, band, company, whatever, is to stay humble, remembering that God is EVERYONE’s Creator and we ALL answer to HIM. How? Bow your head to God and pray. Read your Bible. Remember. Think. Listen. See opportunities to improve. No one but God is perfect or even perfect at one thing. God is. Remember.❤

The Games People Play

I grew up enjoying board games and card games with my family. Every family get together involved lots of playing games. Love them. However, I am not talking about those kind of games, not Euchre, not Uno, not Sorry. No, unfortunately when people grow up they play games of different sorts. These games are usually somewhere between knee deep and chin deep with pride and ego. Many wounded people want to feel important, be right, prove they are worth more, are determined to lift up their importance at the unfortunate cost of anyone else’s importance. Pride makes most everyone do what they do with these games people play. There are games of “I matter” or “I have been hurt so I’m going to hurt someone else” or “I deserve better treatment than this other person”. These games delude the player and the player believes firmly that their intentions are pure or honorable or, scariest of all, Godly. And that only makes them sleep better at night but is not any closer to the truth of the matter than that one person’s importance being greater than another. It simply is not true. Every person is created equally and importantly and lovingly. No one deserves more than anyone else. This truth is being distorted in our world. Marketing agencies and the businesses that employ them are raking in profit sowing this false concept to boost egos, exploit your pride and use that to get you to spend money on their stuff to validate that perceived importance. People in power firmly believe their decisions and lives and luxury are more important than other people’s. And the truth is that the servant is greater than the served because they get it. Being humble is the key to life because those who are humble have the ear of the Almighty Creator God. Those who believe their importance rivals such a holy, powerful Being are in constant danger of being reminded of their place by the only One of limitless power, Master of the Universe. So games rooted in pride will never win, despite the lie you bought into to justify this stupidity. Games are not fun unless everyone wants to play and has fun and knows the rules. Beware of the games people play and their intentions. And those will come to light in time.

God’s Will versus My Will

Today’s sermon raised some very good points that I will now share with you. Whereas I am generally not an enormous fan of sermons (no offense, sermon givers), when they are in agreement and pretty much right out of the Bible and not laden with opinions of humans, I can enjoy them. This particular sermon was out of James 5:13 to the end of the chapter. His first point was my favorite and said that God’s will for us is for us to be like Christ so he places things in our lives to assist us in becoming more like Christ. He is not interested in our preferences but what we need to do what He intends us to do. We are here a short time to learn this and do the best at it we can and then we are done and go to heaven. That is His will. His goal for us is to be more like Christ. Our goals for ourselves may be quite different, but He will win and we may as well let Him. To the best of our ability, we should avoid getting into a boxing ring or power of wills with the all powerful God of the universe. When we say we are going to do this or that without consulting God or allowing for Him to change our circumstances or direction, we step into the boxing ring and boast in our arrogance that we know what is best for us. James is quite clear that that level of arrogance is evil. We should pray about our decisions and see what doors God opens for us to walk through and say, Lord willing. A good thought.

Go Ego Go

Ego is such a funny narcissistic little creature. It lives in us and is parasitic in nature. We need some level of this critter or we wouldn’t comb our hair or brush our teeth or attempt to match our clothes. We have it there for us to care about doing a good job at work or motivating good parenting or working on playing a song well. However, when the focus of this critter becomes over amplified on itself, there is no end to the trouble we find ourselves in. When my ego sticks its nose out past where it belongs, I constantly have to keep the little bugger in check or I will start thinking I am more important to the world than I truly am. The funny thing is that this ego thing has to stay in check in order for we Christ followers to prepare ourselves for the Holy Spirit to do His important work in us and through us. So, it is worth the effort we put forth to discipline our buddy, the ego, and keep him humble. When we are humble, God can shine through us. I am reminded of a conversation my son and I had today. He mentioned the word “famous” and we had a deep discussion on the directly proportional relationship between the fight for fame and a highly inflated ego (aka pride). When we fight for fame, we attempt to lift ourselves up. Well, everything that goes up comes down and every attempt to elevate ourselves amounts to absolutely nothing long term. What counts is fame in God’s kingdom but not ours. The highest calling we have is to at all times lift up/elevate the name of Jesus Christ. When God is lifted up, we are obeying and humbling ourselves and that obedience is always rewarded long term in heaven. When we keep our ego low, God can be lifted up and He is the One who deserves such attention and praise! We are created ones, but He is Creator! There is no greater act of love to God than to tell your ego to take a hike for a while and emphasize in every area of your life God’s creative and sustaining role in everything your life. I would rather have God’s reward and please Him than have any reward from other created ones like myself. Wouldn’t you?