The War on Pride Begins

This episode explores the profound impact of pride and the transformative power of humility. We discuss personal struggles with pride, biblical examples, and practical steps toward living a low life that embraces vulnerability and seeks God’s grace. 

• Personal stories of pride leading to downfall 
• Biblical insights on pride and humility 
•  The story of King Nebuchadnezzar's pride
•  Challenges to identifying pride in our lives 
•  Steps to embrace humility and surrender to God 
•  The importance of community and sharing struggles 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to The lowLIFE Show
• 0:46 Episode Introduction: War on Pride
• 1:16 Why Pride?
• 2:36 Pride Goes Before the Fall
• 4:30 Pride vs Humility
• 5:19 King Nebuchadnezzar's Pride
• 6:52 Personal Testimony
• 8:51 Flashback: Humbled by Prison
• 11:25 Why Humility Matters
• 12:47 Pause for The Cause: Weekly Challenge
• 14:10 Outro and Prayer

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Low Life Show of Space, where we have conversations about the struggles of life, where we declare war on pride and walk humbly into renewed living with a surrendered heart. We take our past failures and turn them into a roadmap for you to live in peace and live a low life. Whether you're working through personal struggles or simply seeking a fresh perspective, this podcast will inspire you and equip you to live low and let God lift you up.

Speaker 1: 0:33

Hey what's good. Welcome to the lowlife show. I am your host, dl the lowlife, and if you're here, it's because either life's knocked you down a time or two. You're curious. You came to show support all of the above, or maybe you just came for a laugh. No one thing. I appreciate you regardless. Thank you for tuning in, I hope. No matter what your reason for being laugh no one thing. I appreciate you regardless. Thank you for tuning in, I hope. No matter what your reason for being here, I do not disappoint. Here's the deal.

Speaker 1: 1:17

This podcast is a declaration of war on pride. Why? Because pride almost took me out. It wrecked my relationships and had me thinking I didn't need anybody, not even God. Pride ruined the better part of my life and I didn't even know it. But God had other plans for me. He humbled me, showed me what truly living looks like and set me on a path to help others. If I can help just one person avoid the pain and pitfalls that come with pride, I will be more than happy. After all, each one reach one right.

Speaker 1: 1:47

So whether you're feeling stuck dealing with some heavy stuff or just trying to figure out what faith looks like for you, this is the place to get real about it. No filters, just real conversation about how God meets us in our mess, no matter how messy they can be at times. When we choose to get low, we realize God has been there, waiting the whole time. Today we're coming in hot from the gate talking bad about pride, why it's such a big deal, why it's the enemy, and how humility is the key to getting free. We're going to track our issues to the source and work our way into spotting and then uprooting it. Let's get with some truth from the Bible straight to the point.

Speaker 1: 2:40

Proverbs 16, 18 says Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. Let's think about that for a second. Pride isn't just bad. It's a setup for disaster. It's part of the recipe. It precedes a fall, meaning get proud, fall down. It blinds us, makes us think we got it all together, lets us feel good about ourselves just enough to want to keep living with it as our backbone the whole time. It's pushing us away from God. If we keep walking that road, eventually we crash, and we crash hard, and pride won't be anywhere to help save us. When that time comes, it'll leave us as fast as it came, in a crumpled mess without any hope for survival. Mess without any hope for survival. I know this because I've experienced it firsthand. But there's hope in humility.

Speaker 1: 3:34

James 4.6 tells us God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. And in James 4.10, one of my favorites humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up. And that's what we're after right now the opportunity to humble ourselves, to come after God, his grace, his help, and for him to do the heavy lifting for us. And it all starts with us getting low. Okay, let's break it down.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Pride is the voice that says I don't need anybody, I could do this on my own, I could be my own. God, I lead the pack and I am the pack. It's the voice in your head that tells you to fake it till you make it. Or that being vulnerable is only for women Men don't do that that other people's opinions and correction can be tuned out immediately and that all you need is you sound familiar. It tells you what you want to hear rather than the truth, because, let's face it, the truth hurts. Humility is the opposite. It's real, it's raw, it's honest and it never leads you into trouble. It's saying god, I can't do anything without you, I need you. It's not about beating yourself up or acting like you're worthless. It's knowing not to gloat about skills and talent and ability that did not come from you. It's about knowing where your strength really comes from, the source of all good things God himself.

Speaker 1: 5:22

Here's a story from the Bible that truly hits home and really resonates when it comes to this pride and humility thing King Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4. This dude thought he was untouchable. I mean King Kong Denzel. In training day he was running around Babylon beating on his chest, telling everybody about how great he was. He was even warned at one point by God in a dream about his future if he continued to do what he was about to do. He did it anyways. This guy built a false idol of himself, but his pride didn't get him a check. Not like the world tries to tell us, we'll get it. Got him checked instead, and this was a king checked by God himself. God had him literally living like an animal eating grass, looking crazy, crazy, until he finally looked up and said Okay, I get it. God, you're in charge, I'm nobody. Once he acknowledged and truly embraced the fact that God is God in humility, he was restored immediately. Sometimes God has to. Let us hit the bottom before we realize we're not all that. Trust me, I real with you.

Speaker 1: 6:59

For years, I thought I had it all figured out. I was the man in my own mind, in my own world. It was my world. Everybody else was just living in it. I was smart, good with words, really great when it came to manipulating people, good looking, so it made it easy for people to listen and fortunate most of my life that things went my way. I was making moves, doing things. However, I wanted to do it and succeeding. I got me a good job with minimal hours on a great salary, power and authority of anywhere from 10 to 1,000 plus people and all the things we reach for to get the world to see us as important.

Speaker 1: 7:39

God never crossed my mind because everything was going how I planned, but underneath it all, it was a mess. My life was falling apart. I was in the process of a divorce. I was trying to fight battles on my own strength and it was beating me down. It wasn't until everything came crashing down in 2016 that I finally started to see Starting with a divorce that saw my kids taken from me. Then, in succeeding order, my mom was hit by a truck crossing the street and later died due to her injuries. I still hear the flatlining machine today. As if that wasn't enough, I wasn't humbled yet. So my only sister and my grandfather both taken in the blink of an eye, all that in just 18 months. And the cherry on top, I would find out later that in 2019, I would be facing prison time, and I would be sitting in a cell alone, grieving all that loss, reconciling where I was being lost, depressed, stressed, all by myself, with no one to lean on. That was where God met me, though in that cell, all alone, one night, in tears, I began to surrender the idea of control in my own life and invited him to take the wheel.

Speaker 1: 8:58

Let me take you back to a time where Pride was the norm for me. It was every guy's dream To be locked up, with nothing but guys. No access to women, no access to freedom, just a bunch of dudes. I had been getting locked up on the county and city levels, but this was different. Anywhere you went, bend over, lift your sack. Humiliating, irritating whatever word you want to use it was that. It was even worse when the guard seemed to be taking his time, like he was missing, something like, if he only looked a little bit harder, like the predator now became the prey, what would you do? It was raining when our bus pulled up, pouring. It was cold too. We were shackled Hands, feet, belly County blues on walking single file, surrounded by cement buildings with a fence wrapped around it, fence covered in barbed wire rolls and signs that said electric shock hazard. I looked up and I saw a tower. In the tower there was a silhouette. The silhouette was a man holding a rifle, pointed at me and the rest of us coming off the bus.

Speaker 1: 10:17

By now you've probably gotten the hint that I do not do well with authority. Hated, uncontrollable situations. My pride ran my life. I did not enjoy any of this. The situation, the environment, the people, none of it. So we walked single file into what looked like a factory building, chained One to another. We got to a paint line and were told to put our faces on the wall. This is where my pride got checked. I started laughing. What is this, kitty time out Like elementary school, where they tell you to put your nose in the circle? I stopped when I saw some of the guys, who were regulars, immediately listen to the command. As I stood there, I heard the command again, followed by consequence If your face isn't on the wall, your face will be in the wall and your head on the floor. Needless to say, I learned compliance that day A little bit less proud, a lot of less arrogant. This is why humility matters.

Speaker 1: 11:27

Pride shows up in sneaky ways, most ways we are not equipped to spot out. We have one pretty universal definition of pride that we can all identify. It's the I'm better than you attitude, but that's only one mask. Then there's the I get to decide what gender I belong to. Pride, both very in your face and easy to spot out. There's also the I'm too good to be seen talking to you pride. Or the it's my right to forgive or withhold forgiveness, pride. Those are only a few. There are so many more masks pride wears. Maybe it is unforgiveness, or maybe it's making you feel like you've got to handle everything on your own. Maybe it's your inability to take advice or to accept that you might be wrong sometimes. Whatever the mask, the end is always the same Stuck in bondage to an impossible idea that you can save yourself.

Speaker 1: 12:20

The flip side of the coin is humility. That's where the fun begins, when you get low, god shows up. He starts breaking chains, healing wounds and giving you the strength to keep going. It's not about being perfect. It's about being willing, willing to be honest, willing to be weak, willing to be helpless, and willing to admit that you're a mess and you need saving, followed by the invitation for the only one who can do it, to do it. Alright. Let's pause for the cause one time, for the one time.

Speaker 1: 12:55

This part of the show, as we are coming to a close, I want to challenge you to start taking steps towards humility. Take some time to think about one area in your life where pride might be creeping in. Is it in your relationships, your work, your walk with God? Even If there isn't one, that's blatantly obvious. Maybe you're just perfect, but if you're being really honest, though, there's always somewhere pride is doing its thing. Ask God to help even with that, To search and bring to the surface an area that pride might live in your life.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Then write a simple prayer of surrender. It doesn't have to be fancy, it can be in whatever words you use, but something like God. I can't do this on my own. I need you. Whatever it is, it's between you and God. If you're feeling bold, share that prayer with someone you trust. There's power and freedom in confession and community. If you'd like, you can even email me at livingthelowlifeshow at gmailcom. One of the main reasons I have for doing this is so you know that you're not alone in your mess. God didn't say me to walk with you from a distance. We're taking all of this personal Thanks for hanging out with me today on the Low Life Show. I hope this hits home for you like it did for me. Remember, god isn't looking for perfection, he's looking for surrender.

Speaker 1: 14:24

The next episode we're going to be diving into the four Ps of living low Posture, prayer position and pride. These are the tools that will help you stay low, the full circle cycle that you can use every day on your path toward a humble, peaceful, low life connected to God. Let's pray real quick, god. Thank you for meeting us right where we are. Teach us to let go of our pride and lean on you in every part of our lives. Bless every person here listening and help them take one step closer to you this week. Every person here listening, and help them take one step closer to you this week. In Jesus name. Amen, until next time. Stay low, stay blessed. This is the low life. Thank you, thank you. Outro Music.