Mackenzie Norman

The very first Bible study I attended in college was a study over the book of Hebrews. It was led by the Women’s Discipleship and Men’s Discipleship team leaders. There were four of us that came regularly to the study, excluding the leaders, and occasionally a random fifth person would come by to check it out. 

In high school, I had begun the process of learning how to lead Bible studies. I read materials, grabbed commentaries, and thought of good discussion questions. Without even realizing it, I came into college expecting to lead. And when it came time to sit in a Bible study, I believed I had finally found my time to shine. To prove that I knew what I was doing- that I was confident, capable, and mature. 

As the weeks of Wednesday night study dragged on, I found myself studying Hebrews intently. But not because I wanted to learn it. Because I wanted to teach it. I was clear to me that my Junior-in-college-Bible-study-leaders had no idea what they were doing and no clue how to teach a deep and comprehensive study of Hebrews, so I took it upon myself to lead our group of sometimes five people into the rich theological underpinnings of Hebrews. 

One week in particular, after waiting for the leaders to say their bit and come to the golden question: “Does anyone have anything else they’d like to add?” I jumped in again from the beginning, expounding on many areas of the passage. We all stayed for an extra fifteen minutes. After that week, my campus minister sent me a message and asked to meet with me. Believing it must be because I was such an exemplary student and Bible teacher, I walked into that meeting and was completely blindsided by what he actually had to say. 

It wasn’t praise for rescuing a floundering study or for providing correct Biblical exegesis. It was a hard word about letting the leaders lead and being content to be taught by others, most of all when my pride would have me believe I  was more capable or qualified than they. Talk about a sucker-punch. But truthfully, I kept myself from learning because I was so intent on teaching, so intent on establishing an identity for myself. It was a humbling experience. But it was a necessary one. I am incredibly grateful I had people around me in college who were able to communicate to me how prideful I was, especially at the moments where I was unable to see it in myself. 

I’d love to say that I learned my lesson and from that moment on, I submitted myself to the people God had chosen to teach a lesson unless they said something inherently unbiblical. But I didn’t. The theme of my first year of college was a consistent belief that I had it all together, I knew more than anyone else, and I deserved more recognition than I received. And before you count yourself out of that group, I want to emphasize that I would have never thought those things or said those things aloud my freshman year of college. I would have insisted that I felt like everyone else probably did, like trying to learn how to balance on a beam on a barrel while holding priceless china plates from 1895. I used my insecurities as proof that I wasn’t prideful, when they were the finger-printed evidence of my pride. 

I’m sure your mother, grandmother, and great-aunt twice removed have all told you “pride comes before a fall.” Believe it or not, it’s a common saying with Biblical roots. 

“Pride goes before destruction,

    and a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Proverbs 16:18

But pride is not something we avoid just because we don’t want to find ourselves publically humiliated. Pride, when left unchecked, weaves its way into various parts of our spiritual life and chokes out the growth. More often than not the root cause of the sins we commit, from the little white lie to the things so shameful we don’t want anyone to know about, is our pridefulness. We want our lives on our terms, in our time, in our way. We choose self-reliance above reliance upon God. We try to control our surroundings, our image, our success, and even other people instead of trusting His provision. And we give into bitterness and anger when our plans and dreams fall apart, instead of believing in His goodness even when things don’t happen like we expect. 

We grow spiritually when we humble ourselves and decide to trust God, to lean into Him, and let Him have His way in our lives. And ultimately, we are never more like Satan then when we are prideful, and we are never more like Jesus than when we are humble. 

“Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 

 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…” 

1 Peter 5:5-6