While sweeping my dusty floor boards today, my mind started to wander, and I began to think about the state of the world. Or the state of the world according to my Facebook news feed.
I become so frustrated looking at my news feed, constantly being bombarded with opinionated, argumentative articles, boastful Facebook statuses or negative shallow ones. And reassessing it all while I was sweeping it hit me, we are a world plagued with pride.
Pride seems to be the driving force behind so many arguments these days. I didn’t have to scroll down my feed very long to see it. We have seen it for years in the “battle of the sexes” and now the normalisation of homosexuality or otherwise put “gay pride”.
Why in the pursuit of being accepted and loved – which everyone wants – do we get tangled in a web of pride?
I am not going to expect that I know how to answer this, other than to speak of sin and the fall of the human race. But I would rather turn our thoughts to what we can do to combat pride.
Be humble.
Humility! One of the most beautiful virtues and so hard to do. Because we can’t pursue humility and try so hard to be humble and turn around and say “look how good I am, I am being so humble!” Haha no… To be humble we need to forget ourselves.
Yes, we need to forget our wants and focus on the needs of others. This doesn’t have to be anything huge.
“Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love” Inspiring words of Mother Teresa.
Truly just doing our best job as mothers, we will fulfil this. Being of service to our family and doing it with humility and love.
I am starting to see a pattern in our culture with this increased habit of pride: it’s the humble jobs and the humble people who are being overlooked and undervalued.
Have you ever been to a shopping centre food court and people-watched?
Here we can see an example of a humble job: the janitor. In most cases this man or woman is completely ignored. Quietly going about their work, wiping our tables, sweeping our floors, cleaning our toilets. There is a temptation to look down upon them, it is an ordinary job. But isn’t it equally noble? Considering the value, in fact, it adds to the shopping centre’s overall success. It is essential.
We don’t have to stretch our imaginations too far to consider homemaking and motherhood being viewed in a similar light in our culture.
Just like the janitor, to the outside eye, it is ordinary work and for the most part it is a thankless job. But boy is it essential! Let us not forget how essential it is!
This work that we do is chipping away at our pride! Let us submit to this and have it take away all our pride! We don’t need it, it is only holding us back. It is humility that will bring us closer to God. Humble acts of self-sacrifice offered in love will unite us with Jesus Christ crucified.
I pray that we will be pleased to do those thankless tasks. The most ordinary, unnoticed and unappreciated tasks, in secret. To be truly humble and offer it all in love to our Lord.
Originally posted 2015-08-13 12:00:43.