By: Iyo_Embong

Mark 9: 30-37 “If anyone wishes to be the first, he shall be the last of all, and the servant of all.” In other words, flatten your tires of pride.

Our inability or unwillingness to flatten our tires of pride is the one single cause why we live miserable lives. Is there any relationship that burdens you right now? The key is humility. YES, JUST FLATTEN YOUR TIRES OF PRIDE!

PRIDE means broken down into everyday language is to trust in yourself, your education, your ability, your position and your material gains more than anyone. Now I am not talking about taking pride in what you do. No. I mean being proud of yourself, based on how much gain you have, or how good you look.

Pride is more deadly than cancer because it blinds a person from seeing how they are. Pride makes one think he is always right and they are not at all concern about how they hurt other people. All pride is based on the material gains of this world. A prideful person is so busy trying to get others to look at him that he can’t hear what is going on within him. A prideful person wears his feelings on his shoulder and is very easily offended.

People full of pride always need people around them that are in a lower social position. This makes them look much bigger. And if they meet someone who is better off, they try to bring them down. When a person is full of pride, he refuses to share the lime lights with anyone else. Prideful men always look for others to give them praise.

You can easily spot a prideful person, because everything about him says, look at me!

Only prideful people will stand up for their opinion to the point of physically abusing others. Embarrass a prideful person and you will have a fight on your hands. A person full of pride cannot back down because he needs to look big in front of others. His whole existence depends on others seeing him as somebody big. The reason why pride goes before a downfall is because prideful people have a very small vision. They only see what they choose to see, and that’s no farther then their noise. You can talk day and night to someone full of pride, and they will not understand a word.

Prideful people interpret everything to best fit their need. A person filled with love will treat others the way he wants to be treated. This my friend is the true test of pride or love. Contrary to a person filled with pride. Loving is so humbling that it is opposite from pride.

Everything about a prideful person is false. The lies he tells, the way he dresses, the way he walks, and the thoughts he has. Now you can see this is the reason people are caught in so many traps. When we begin our lives with a lie, we must continue in that lie, until we decide to accept truth. We train our children to be proud when they are very young, by buying unnecessary junk just to make them look better than anyone else. In return our children learn to see themselves better than anyone unable to meet their high-class of dressing.

There could never be a war without pride. For pride carries a contagious parasite called SELFISHNESS. “Everything is fine long as I can maintain a certain standard, get what I want and achieve what I want to achieve regardless what other people think”. This is how we teach children to continue in the same mistakes as their parents. What would there be to fight for if everyone humbled themselves and refused to hurt their fellow mankind? Who could stand to see a child and woman lying in the streets slaughtered like animals? Don´t you see it is pride that goes before a downfall?

Think about this: Money can be replaced; stupid disagreements and quarrels can be resolved; but the life of a loved one is irreplaceable.

The story is told about two men who were arguing on what to do about their truck that got stuck under a low overhead bridge. They had all sorts of theories and solutions so as not to damage further the bridge and the truck. Hearing all this, a child who was at the scene gave them a simple suggestion: “Sirs, just flatten the tires.”

“Funny how grown-up pride hides all the tears inside.” This beautiful line from the song “People” should remind us, and no matter where life’s roads lead us, there will always be that “soft side” in each one of us that cannot and should not be denied.

One lesson I learned from watching Dubai Desert Safari is the need to deflate the tires when one journeys through the desert. Deflated tires make good traction and stability. I suppose, it’s the same in life too, especially as we go through deserts and byways, let us deflate our tires.

For those who have over inflated their tires of pride, TAKE NOTE: That over inflated tires give you a bouncy ride, and they may blow out anytime!

By: Iyo_Embong 2012©Copyright. Any distribution, reproduction or copying of any part of this article is forbidden. If you wish to use this article please only use the first 2-3 lines as an excerpt and link back directly to the article along with the Authors name.