Pride (Lesson 8)

Pride is one of those things that we all fight. President Ezra Taft Benson gave a wonderful talk titled “Beware of Pride” in that talk he states “The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.” This definition of pride took me back, and humbled me a little bit. I am so guilty of those feelings, of being hostile or in a state of opposition. How many times in marriage do we look at the way our husband is doing something and tell him that he is doing it wrong, or we feel like our way is better and we aren’t open to other possibilities.

 Let me tell you a story about my husband and I. We had been married about four months when one Sunday after coming home from dinner at my parents’ house my husband says you know I really prefer my family’s mashed potatoes over yours. I thought that was incredibly rude because I was the one in my family that makes the mashed potatoes, and I had them down to perfection at my house. I was known for my potatoes, and here my new husband was telling me that he thought they were bland and dry. Potatoes are not a big deal, right? In fact, they have absolutely nothing to do with marriage or pride, but here I was letting my pride of my potatoes drive a little wedge into our marriage. In the end we talked about what he liked more in his potatoes and I explained how I felt about my potatoes. We ended up deciding that neither of the families were that great. We put our heads together and made our own mashed potatoes recipe that is perfect to us. In fact, we made a date night out of it, we boiled a pot and then split it up, then mashed them up in a variety of ways. It was a quirky date night but remains one of my favorites to date.

In the talk mentioned earlier, president Benson also says “The proud stand more in fear of men’s judgment than of God’s judgment. (See D&C 3:6–7; D&C 30:1–2; D&C 60:2.) “What will men think of me?” weighs heavier than “What will God think of me?” When we are wondering how others view us instead of how Heavenly Father views us we are falling into the sin of pride. This week has made me want to improve my life in this aspect. To not worry so much about what others think, and to worry more about what my Heavenly Father thinks.