Vanity and Pride

We hear a lot more about pride than we do vanity.  Do you know people who seem to think more highly of themselves than they should?  When you are around these kind of people do they act like they are looking down on you or do they seem to ignore you?  Do they stay in their own little group acting high and mighty?  They probably have a problem with vanity and pride!

I think if we were honest with ourselves, we would have to acknowledge the fact that we all have this problem to some degree or other.  

Think about this, there are some very beautiful and handsome people in this world and it seems like most of us want to be one of these people.  If most people were honest they would say that there is something about their appearance they would like to change.

Question:  Why do we always want to be different?  There seems to be an obsession in our country to be someone else or to be different in some way.

Why can’t most of us be satisfied with who we are and what we look like?

There are people that live horrible lives because they are jealous of someone else.  We stress about our weight because we think we are too heavy or we are to thin.  We aren’t pleased with many things about ourselves, our lips are too thick or to thin, our ears are too big or too small.  What about our head and face, it is to round or to oval, our eyes are too wide or too close together and what about our nose, forget it, it is either too long, too short, too big or too small.  We have too much hair or too little hair or no hair at all.  Some of us think we are too tall or too short and I could go on and on, why can’t we just be glad we are who we are?

The people that sell cosmetics and makeup are happy because they are rich because of our vanity and/or pride, it is crazy.  Have you ever heard a woman say, “I can’t leave the house without putting my face on?”  Come on, wasn’t she born with a face?  If they have to put their face on then I guess they walk around with two faces, imagine that!  (It seems like if someone married a lady and she forgot to put her face on that night he might wake up in the morning and be scared to death when he looked at her, and the honeymoon would be over, Ha, Ha, a little humor).  Come on stop conforming to the world.  We worry so much about what other people think about us.

We think the way we do because we buy into all the commercials and the sales pitches that we hear.  Plastic surgeons love it because they are also getting rich on people that are not satisfied with what they look like.  Many have had face lifts and tummy tucks.  Now don’t get me wrong I am not against anyone trying to look their best but we are taking this thing to extremes, there needs to be a balance in everything.

Now what about clothing, most of us need to wear the latest styles regardless of the cost, dresses, shirts, pants, coats, hats, and shoes.  And don’t forget about handbags, scarves and gloves.  It is not like we don’t need all these things, but how many of them do we need, and do we need the best?  When was the last time you went to a garage sale or flea market to buy your clothing?  

We have all conformed to this way of thinking in one way or another.

All of these things come under the banner of vanity, shame on us.  Now I want us to focus on ourselves and not our clothing.

First I want to say that God loves us so much that we will never be able to fully understand it.  The Bible says, “Greater love hath no man but that he would lay his life down for a friend.”  But God took love even further than that, He gave His life for His enemies also and that included us.  When we were born with a sin nature we were enemies of God but that didn’t stop Him from giving His Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for us.  Jesus paid the ultimate price for us so that we could be reconciled to God, blameless, washed and cleansed by His precious blood.  Praise God!  Another thing I want to say is God doesn’t make junk, in His eyes we are beautiful and if there is anything He wants to change in us He will, if we let Him.  Do you think God is impressed with all our makeup and our fancy clothes?  No!

I think many handicapped people struggle with this problem wondering why they were born with some kind of disability.  They think because some people treat them different, they feel inferior thinking most people don’t like them.  They may even think that God doesn’t love them.  God loves the handicapped whether they were born that way or became handicapped later in life.  Think about this, when was the last time you laughed at a handicapped person?

I remember there was a guy where I worked that had a nerve problem and his head shook to the point that he didn’t seem to be able to control it.  He ended up with the nickname “wobble noggin.”  We all called him that, not to hurt his feelings but just because it was his nickname and that is what would come to mind when you saw him.  I think you always know when you are saying something you shouldn’t say, because you wouldn’t say it to the person’s face.  He never seemed to mind it, but I wonder what he really felt like.  Today I really regret calling him that even if it was only behind his back, I should have known better because I had, and still have, a similar problem.

I have had what the doctors say is a chemical imbalance in my brain since I was a teenager, which is also called a tremor.  At first it seemed to affect only my hands when I would write.  Now since I have gotten older it affects my whole body.  If I get a little nervous my whole body shakes uncontrollably.  I can’t control my hands in many situations so it affects most everything I do.  I can’t write, but praise the Lord, I can type.  It takes me much longer than the average person because many times I hit two keys or the wrong one completely.  I thank God that my daughter, Christy, encouraged me to do this blog so that I might be an encouragement to someone else through these teachings, which I praise the Lord for helping me with.  I am sure that some people have laughed at me behind my back and made fun of me.  May the good Lord forgive them and bless them with repentance and salvation.  Because of my tremor I have tried very hard to please people and to get them to like me because I feel inferior most of the time.  I have a hard time going to a restaurant because I get embarrassed because of the way I have to eat.  Sometimes I just want to avoid people altogether.  There are times when I have questioned God, being angry at Him for not healing me, which was very wrong.  I had a chance to be healed of my tremor once, but I chose to be healed of my asthma, and I was miraculously healed, Praise God.  Like I said, it is hard for us to be happy with ourselves.

Lately I have asked the Lord, “why would you want a child of yours to be this way and how are you glorified in this?”  And this is the answer I think He gave me.  “My priority isn’t what is going on, on the outside of a man or woman, no, My priority is what is going on in the heart.  What honors Me is the sweet and gentle spirit.  I resist the proud and draw to the humble, it is not that I am not concerned about everything about you, but I see things different than you do.”

I didn’t tell you these things to have you feel sorry for me, no, my purpose is to encourage anyone else that may feel like I do.

Let me give you an example of what I am talking about in the Word.  I thought about this after the answer came to me.

After Saul had been rejected as King of Israel because of his sins God told Samuel to go anoint one of Jesse’s sons as King in Saul’s place!  It says this in 1^st Samuel 16 verses 4–7, “So Samuel did as the Lord instructed him to.  When he arrived at Bethlehem the leaders of the town became afraid.  ‘What’s wrong,’ they asked, ‘do you come in peace?’ ‘Yes,’ Samuel replied, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.  Purify yourselves and come to the sacrifice?’  Then Samuel performed the purification rite for Jesse and his sons and invited them to it.  When they arrived Samuel took one look at Eliab and thought surely this is the Lord’s anointed, but the Lord said to Samuel, ‘don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him.’  The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do, people judge by outward appearance but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.” (from New Living Translation Bible)  Then Jesse presented all seven of his sons to Samuel but there was another son named David that wasn’t there.  Jesse saw this son only as a shepherd boy, but God saw him as a King.  David ended up being a man after God’s own heart.

The moral of the story is that we need to be striving to have a pure heart and a sweet and gentle spirit.  We also need to glimpse at people and gaze at the Lord!  There is nothing wrong with trying to look our best, but what is our motive?  That is what is very important.  Don’t fall into the trap of vanity and pride over your appearance, praise the Lord for what He has created, you, and start loving yourself, and remember the Lord loves you beyond anything you can imagine just the way you are!  Praise God and have a great day. P. S. God bless You!