Pride has always existed, for it exists within God...

Now, before you stop reading this, I must first explain something about our capacity for understanding. Contrary to popular opinion, there is much that we do not understand in completeness, and I would suggest, even lack the capacity to understand with our human minds.

So, with this possibility of our limited understanding, let me attempt to unravel this perspective of pride.  

God, who always existed and is the source and sustainer of His creation (as well as reasonably, things beyond our world), has every right to be prideful.

The answer to this outrageous, and to some, a preposterous allegation, is found in the question, what is pride?

Our Christian definition of pride tends to focus on the negative aspect of it, which would be a self-inflated perspective of oneself or one’s actions.

However, the actual definition is:

-a feeling of deep pleasure derived from one’s own achievements

Or

-the consciousness of one’s own dignity

and even

-The best state or condition of something; the prime

All of these definitions fit The Almighty quite well.

Therefore, if it is fitting to attribute pride to God, then why is it that throughout scripture, we see a problem when pride enters the angelic or human race?

Simply put, we are created. However, we were not created with the capacity to carry pride. We were created to be a reflection, a mirror, and a vessel, to carry what was never ours, and what never originated within us. That is why pride in us turns us away from God and into something twisted and contorted from our original design.

Should the painting or the painter receive the praise?

After all, a painting is a collaboration between colors, textures, a backdrop that can hold them both, and the mind and skill of the artist. Therefore, the artist should get the praise, should they not?  

Well, who put the creativity within the artist? Who put the ligaments and muscles that move the joints in each finger to move in just the right motions to create each shape and figure?  And who sustains the mind and body through the process of creating?

Is it the artist, or the creator of the artist?

Therefore, who is justified in the pride of the artwork?

I propose that the Creator of the artist is the only true landing place for pride.

The artist, if in their right understanding, should rejoice in the opportunity to pour forth what has come out of the uniqueness that was placed into themselves.

The art piece would be the focal point that causes a feeling to rise within the spectators, that something beyond themselves exists.

In other words, this is a cyclical event where The Originator and Sustainer sends forth a message, through His creation, and it returns to him in the adoration of Himself.

Now, if a human being, not being the source, acts in this manner, we would look at them as self-centered, arrogant, and needy of affirmation.

But when the true Source does this, it is the most natural and fitting progression.

And this is where the story that we know begins.

In Ezekiel 28, we see a picture of Lucifer. The creation of absolute beauty and wisdom. It was as if God chose to put His essence or image into His creation… Sound familiar?

So, Lucifer was created to mirror God’s amazing beauty and more.

(Before I continue, I will be referring to Lucifer in the feminine throughout this writing, mostly due to my own research and understanding. I wanted to preface this so that you weren’t thrown off by it. It does not matter to me whether you believe Lucifer is a he or a she; your own conclusion is suitable. My conclusions are not based on gender or biology, but on nature and actions that we have access to observing and understanding.)

Which means she was created as a reflection or a vessel for God’s essence to pass through, or reflect off of.

Therefore, if Lucifer could be reflected off of, or poured into with all the aspects of God, this may also include the aspect of God’s holy pride passing through her. I do admit that this is the one jump that I must take in this whole argument, for it is impossible for me to prove that this thing of holy pride would be sent to her to reflect, however, I do not think it is that far of a reach to expect that this would naturally be a part of all of the goodness of God that would flow through it’s creation, after all, the same opportunity occurs within us as humanity to hold onto what we think we have accomplished, as well as the same tempation to fall as she did.

Again, because Lucifer was not the source of all things, she was not created with the capacity to carry pride. She could allow it to pass through her or reflect off of her, but any attempt to hold back any part of it would be to her destruction. So, in other words, she became corrupted by something she was never meant to carry, and never had the capacity to carry.

In that moment, she desired and attempted to be a source of an image. Instead of looking in the mirror and saying, “Wow God, you made me good,” she said, “Wow, I look good.”

It was the same lie that she told to Eve: you don’t have to be just a vessel, you don’t have to be just a mirror, you can be the source. You, Eve, can be like God…

This was and continues to be our greatest downfall.

And it continues on in every human being, the temptation and the lie and deception to be more than what we were created to be.

Beneath every human being, who has drunk to the dregs, this lie and deception, is a deterioration of their inner self… Simply put, none of us were built to handle being the source.

We were created:

-as vessels, dearly loved, and handcrafted, and

-as mirrors perfectly cut and angled for the divine purpose of revealing the Majesty of the Creator and Sustainer upon this earth.

The human purpose did not begin with us and it was not designed by us, we are simply a part of the plan, but oh how beautiful the stories we are written into when we allow the pen and the journal of our lives to rest in the hands of the Creator, and more importantly when we make sure that all the Glorious image of God continues through us and back to the True Source.

They say that misery loves company. Lucifer, now referred to as the Deceiver, would love nothing more than for all of humanity to join her in the deception that holding onto what we were never created to carry is somehow the right path for our lives. It didn’t work out well for her, and it won’t for any human who follows her path.

There is another way…

I reference this way in story form in The Compass Series and The Be Collection.

The reality is that we all need something to stand on, and for too long we have stood on ‘our accomplishments or our stuff’, and if we are to no longer stand on these, then we must find something else to stand upon. These stories can help you on that journey.

Be blessed on your journey with Jesus.