Tuesday, July 07, 2020

The Nature of a Proud Person

(Monroe sunset)


James 4:6 says:

God is opposed to the proud,
but gives grace to the humble. 

Who, then, would ever want to be proud? Only a fool.

Bernard of Clairvaux had some things to say about the proud person. From the 12th century, Bernard wrote:


"The proud person must either talk or burst . . . He hungers and thirsts after hearers, to whom he may vaunt his vanities, to whom he may pour forth all his feelings, to whom his character and greatness may become known . . . Opinions fly around, weighty words resound. He interrupts a questioner, he answers one who does not ask. He himself puts the questions, he himself solves them, he cuts short his fellow speaker’s unfinished words . . . He does not care to teach you, or to learn from you what he does not know, but to know that you know that he knows."
- Bernard of Clairvaux, The Steps of Humility, p. 204

For all who desire God's presence with them, avoid this.