Summoned: Answering a Call to the Impossibleনমুনা

Summoned to Selflessness

A few years ago, I was strolling through my favorite used bookstore and I found a treasure. Buried beneath a stack of old books was a first edition C. S. Lewis hardback of The Screwtape Letters. I audibly squealed as I picked it up. The inside page was signed by its previous owner. “Langdon Woods, November 1943” was gently penned in script.

This is the kind of book I will spend hours in, dogearing pages and scribbling notes in the margins. C. S. Lewis is one of my absolute favorite authors. He has a way of saying things that sears God’s Word into my heart.

In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis says, “The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. . . . As long as you are proud you cannot know God at all. A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” 

Pride is the sinister thing we are seeing in Haman now.

How quickly these warm and fuzzy feelings turn to ash and vengeful anger. This sounds like an ego problem. Moments ago, Haman is feeling content as he is wined and dined by the Persian royalty, but when a fellow court member refuses to “tremble” before him, his pride and ego are wounded, sending him into a fit of rage.

Where have we seen this before? Oh yeah. King Ahasuerus, when Vashti refused him and subsequently undermined his ego, also was consumed with anger. These two make quite a pair.

What does God say about pride? He says He heartily opposes it. He calls us to humility. Not to the exaggerated and self-deprecating type of humility or false modesty, but instead, He calls us to realize how great His holiness is compared to our sinfulness. Proper humility is a grasped understanding that He is infinitely holy and we are not—not even close.