As I walked home from Tim Hortons where I hung out with a little group after watching a high school band concert, I remembered what I overheard a student whom I have never met before tell his friend as we walked out out on the snow-laden parking lot, “Was I awesome or what?” “You were! Pretty good!” answered his friend. “Pretty good?! Just pretty good?! I think overwhelmed you with my awesomeness!” retorted the student. Well, first of all, it was a band concert. Band by definition is a group of musicians who play together. So to take personal credit for something a group achieved is not fair. Second, the person wasn’t all that bad, but the person was not phenomenal either.
Oh, such hubris reminds me of my high school and university life– a fraction of time in ones life when I believed I knew it all, and actually thought of others as hopeless idiots. Hubris is when one says, “I am awesome, you’re not! No one else can be better than I.” I was smarter than my teachers and even my dad. I remember writing a debasing article that sparked out of a little debate I had with my Social Studies teacher who insisted that Morocco was in South America! I knew I was right so I fought for it. I was right, but it was no reason for me to harshly criticize my teacher. I was all set to get my article lambasting the teacher printed out. A few days before my article came out, I remember my discipleship group leader who knew nothing about my plans, made me read Philippians 2. Verse 3 spoke so loudly that evening to me, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,…” I remember going to my senior editor the next day taking back what I had written.
But the hubris of youth should just be within a fraction of ones lifetime. Technically, the more we mature the more humble we must become, that is, if maturity happens within the context of grace and Christ’s lordship. Hubris is part of our fallen nature, and as long as we live in our mortal fallen bodies, hubris remains. In fact, it grows along with us! The more successful and intelligent we become to more hubristic we turn. We will always have the tendency to think we are better than others. We will always take egocentric pride on our accomplishments. We will always brag about what we know and what we have. We will always the inclination towards looking down on people. Growth in God’s grace helps people take control of their egotism with help from God’s Spirit, and eventually sees changes in perspective about one’s self and the people around her or him. One day, truth will have its way with us for good. The truth is: the only good there is is God, everyone else is trying to be or act like him. When that day finally arrives I suspect many will wonder why they had waited so long. They had been pretending and posturing with life when all along they could have had their real self in God.
Time to wake up to ourselves, to see ourselves with as much clarity as possible. To take it all in–the good, the bad and the ugly. No more dancing around the actual content of our life. No more cover-ups and pretense. No more hemming and hawing. No more rationalization, no more excuses, no more costuming and make-up. The day is long past for all of that. Way long past. End hubris, we’re not as awesome as we think we are.
