These are some lyrics to a 39-line satire I wrote as a song: ?AMERICA! SEARCHING FOR REALITY!' I now convert the negative lines of the song into positive thoughts.

___________________

Pride won't admit I might be wrong,... or that I might have a problem,... or that there might be something better I could be doing in my marriage,? or that I don't have the answers that others think I have. Pride won't let me talk about some things to other people,? or it won't let me admit my shortcomings or my failures,? or it won't let me admit I might need help (by even asking for directions).

Ziggy, the cartoon philosopher says, "Sometimes I think the only thing I have to be proud of is my pride." Pride is an overly-high exaggerated opinion of oneself. It is defined as conceit. It is defined as the disease that makes everyone else sick - while the carrier doesn't realize he has it.

Pride can be a good trait, up to a point. If defined as a healthy self-love because of who we are created to be, a good self image, or a realistic recognition of self-worth, it is good. It is said: ?Love others AS you love yourself.' Without healthy self-love we really can't love other people.

But the big problem with pride is that it is always focused on US, with a big ?capital I' in the middle: pr--I--de. Pride makes us think we are - or can be - the greatest. In the Garden, Adam and Eve were tempted with ?wanting to be more like God' (Gen 3:5). Their focus was on them. Pride grows from an unhealthy sense of SELF-righteousness. It's all about me. Pride is said to be ?worshipping the creature rather than the Creator.'

We must marry a healthy sense of pride with humility. We must mix them.

The thing that balances pride, and puts it in perspective, is HUMILITY. A humble person is often pictured as someone who is a doormat, or who walks around looking down at the toes of his shoes. He's seen in a submitted posture, and deferring to everyone else. But the truth is that humility is not pretending to be less than you are. It isn't taking the back seat to everyone else. It isn't pretending you don't have certain talents, knowledge, money, experience, or anything else that you really do have. This is false humility.

True humility is in recognizing we are all creatures with needs. Humility recognizes the worth and value of others, and the fact that others are better than we are in many, many ways. Our own personal, particular balance of pride vs. humility defines who we are as individual people.

A proverb says, "Before honor comes humility." Another says, "Pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Humility without pride is total SELF focus. Pride without humility is also total SELF focus. Both are dead-end streets.

A healthy pride balanced with a healthy humility are not self-focused, but others-focused. Pride says, "Here I am," but humility says, "There you are" -but it is balanced with a heart of gratitude and thankfulness for the person we have been created to be. Humility is grounded in gratitude and thankfulness, which converts into healthy pride, that then reaches out a hand to others, to help lift them to higher ground.