“You can’t be prideful if you say how good you are to yourself, then show it wordlessly in your actions.”

This nugget came after a session with one of my life mentors, Bill Morris. We chatted about a lot of things for about 45 minutes and he says, “Do you realize you have said four derogatory things about yourself in the last few minutes?” I mumbled something to the effect that “I didn’t realize that I had done that.” He said, “You need to stop that right now. You should only have good things to say about yourself.” As I walked him out, we saw Sunshine and the three of us talked for a few minutes. He said something that undercut his abilities and Bill stopped him in the same way. Sunshine responded, “I don’t want to sound prideful in what I can do.” Bill gave him the same admonishment.

A few days later, I was leaving the gym and Bill was driving in to work out. He said this nugget – “You can’t be prideful if you say how good you are to yourself, then show it wordlessly in your actions.” It has really struck me. We will cut ourselves down and demean the gifts that God gives us in an effort to make us look “smaller” in the eyes of others. However, we have been gifted by God to accomplish amazing things with those gifts. Bill is right – we cannot honor God by minimizing our gifts. We must use them at the highest level and let them speak for themselves. When we can set aside words and attitudes and let our actions be our voice, then God will be glorified, others will be blessed and we can move forward with confidence.

Here is the challenge: Listen to yourself and others in this area for a week. I am amazed at how many people do this. (And it looks terrible on them…me too when I do it.) The good news is that it isn’t that hard to change once you are aware of it.