If ever there was a doubt that men struggle with pride and humility, our discussion over 1 Peter 5:6 convinced me it was true. Our group is set up with men who want to deep dive into the issues, but it has been months since we stagnated over a single verse. From the first impression that we “Don’t like ‘Humble Yourself’” I knew we were in for a good morning.

6 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you. 

• Humble before God as opposed to what other humility? Exalt: What does that mean to you?

Other first impression’s included need for Self-Control, benefit of Be sober (because He knows we sin), the Devil, and comfort. It was a wide array or responses, but it was over an hour before we got to the first question on the verse itself and we only squeezed in the second question to say we had.

In theory, people can be humble before other people, but normally this concept of humility is a construct of the world and is based on admitting weakness before another before it is demonstrated to be so. Very rarely is a more powerful individual humble before a weaker individual without a religious influence. I am sure people could argue this for eternity, but the intent is to show that as Christians our humility is to be before the Omnipotent God and pushing aside the thoughts of the flesh, or the world, that any good can come from any other source. I can add 2 plus 2, but without God giving me some ability, I would not be unable to remember that.

This verse promises that God will exalt us for being humble. I personally have a hard time fathoming this. I know it is something that will be great, but it is almost too big a reward to shoot for. I want to please God; if it results in my praise, great, but that is like icing on a cake.

I have slept several times since our discussion on humility and I do not really want to drag our failures outside the group for all to see. I do want to try and convey a couple key ideas.

One: We all suffer from the impact of pride. Everyone in the group had an active area of struggle with it.

Two: We suffer from the impact of pride daily. Our issues were not things we struggled with in the path and overcame. They were things we were dealing with on that specific Friday morning.

Three: Our struggles with pride are impactful. It was not like our struggles were things that could be overlooked and affected only ourselves. Our pride impacted how we treated everyone in our lives daily. Our wives, our children, our boss, our church leaders, and how we used our own time.

Four: Our struggles were individual. Our problems with pride were unique to our own lives, defined by our own weaknesses, and the areas in which we think are our strengths.

Five: Our pride daily impacts our relationship with God. Whether it is our reluctance to pray daily, to read the Bible daily, to memorize scripture, to share with our neighbors, to lead our family in Bible study, to pray with our wives, to pray with our kids, to turn to other Christians for help, or any of a million different ways we chose our own path.

So, for the sake of brevity, I will stop her and conclude: Humility is the answer to Pride. Pride leads to sin and Humility is our path from sin. Follow the path of Humility and be rewarded.