There is nothing wrong with being confident or taking pride in your work or in your accomplishments. What God has blessed us with is nothing that we should take lightly. Our personal and professional accomplishments should be a part of our testimonies. However, what happens some of the time is that because of these accomplishments or our status, we let that go to our heads and we become prideful, arrogant, and disrespectful. We see it every day with our political leaders who have become so ego and power driven that they forget the big picture and forget what their actual purpose is. A person suffering from an ego problem is someone who has become so caught up in believing his or her own hype that they no longer see when they have offended someone. They no longer say “I’m sorry.” Because in his or her own mind, they are always right and if someone is offended by his or her words, it is their problem. We sometimes let our egos get in the way of looking for or seeking help when we need it. Because we are so stuck on ourselves we begin doing things that adversely affect other people and we do not see it.
Think about that coworker that has just gotten a new promotion. Now they are your boss. Now suddenly they have forgotten where they have come from. They start to give all of these new demands and work orders. For example, a fellow teacher has now become a principal or lead teacher. Suddenly, they are calling all types of meetings and making all of these demands on your time suddenly suffering from amnesia because they have forgotten all of the challenges that teachers face, one of them primarily being, lack of time to accomplish everything. They become combative, argumentative and take things personally when you question them or ask them for clarification. It is only ego that would cause this type of issue or conflict because the person has begun to believe his or her own hype and when they feel their status is being called to the carpet, they get defensive and sensitive.
Sometimes, if we are not careful we let our egos get in the way when we try to help others. We begin to feel that because of who or what we are, we can help everyone going through struggles and strife even if that person has not asked for help. We interject ourselves in people’s lives without their consent. We judge harshly and speak negatively towards a person because our ego has fooled us into thinking that the person needs it only to have that person tell you where to go and then bam we are in are feelings because our unwarranted advice has been rejected.
Some religious leaders and fellow Christians are not exempt from suffering from ego trips. Sometimes as Christians we also begin to believe our own hype. We feel as if we are so worthy and so pristine that we hold other Christians who are not measuring up to man’s (not God’s) standards of what a walk with Jesus is, they are damned to hell or not as good of a Christian. Some of our fellow leaders also begin to believe their own hype as well. They are exempt from making mistakes or not willing to listen to suggestions or take critiques. It is important to remember that people in the ministry are not walking on water and are subject to the same temptations, weaknesses, and failures as we all are. Yet we have some leaders fooling themselves into believing that they are exempt from the pitfalls of sin and on the other side of that coin, we have some believers who condemn or judge our clergy more harshly when they do step out on faith and admit to their failures and moments of weakness.
It is our egos that lead us to believe that when God blesses us financially or materially that we are better than our brother and sister who have a little less than us. We look down on those who get assistance, those who are unemployed, and those who need to ask us for help from time to time because in our eyes, we feel that person is less because they are not as lucky as we are. The ego part causes those people to forget that any of us could easily be in that position one day yet that dreaded ego fools us into believing that could never be so. That is the saddest part. I hate when I hear people say, “I don’t understand how people can’t pay their bills.” You never know when that could be you. Yet the ego side of us fools us into believing that cannot be us and those who are needy are just mooching off of the government.
It is time out for all of these ego trips. We are looking down at others, condemning others, judging others, and falling out of favor with God and with each other. Friendships and family relationships are being destroyed. Credibility is being shot, and negative images are being formed. The ego is a liar and a cancer on our personal, professional, and spiritual growth. Nobody is exempt from suffering from ego trips. We have all gone down that road before. We have to be careful not go down that road too many times, or we are bound to get lost, twisted, and turned around.
In the spirit of love,
CG2
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