When you think of sinful pride, what comes to mind?  I always think of it as self-reliance, depending upon myself to do what needs to be done.  I forget that the implication of that means separation from others.  Henry Fairlie in his book, The Seven Deadly Sins, reminded me of that separation in his chapter on pride.  He wrote:

…often in our Pride we do not realize how aloof we have become, and how cut off even from what in our own nature we should most deeply know and enjoy…The most widespread form that [pride] takes today is simply the retreat of people into their private lives.  As long as their society provides them with a reasonable degree of personal security and affluence, and the necessary means and opportunities to entertain themselves, it may be left to function and be managed as may be, no matter that it is still an unfit place for others to live in.  We at least have “made it,” and having made it, need only to be left alone.”

How sinisterly subtle, pride is and what we celebrate as rugged individualism is really nothing more than sinful pride.  Deliver me God, all the more, from the pride that refuses to see my neighbor. to love my neighbor. to serve my neighbor.  Help me see that pride for what it is and how it violates your shalom.  Thank you Jesus for violating yourself by taking on my sin – you who knew no sin – so that I may know and enjoy the shalom of God.