Ego Archives - Spartan Christianity

Saul’s Decay of Humility

How often is it that men start off their lives great yet finish in disaster? What is it that causes that disaster? Why do some men begin with excellence and end poorly while others begin with nothing and finish as great men? What happens with men like Saul?

There is never only one reason for anything. All we can do is examine the trends and try to build an idea of what happened.

This happened for the famous Bible character Saul. Saul was the first king of the Israelite nation. The Bible tells us he stood head and shoulders above everyone else in the nation in height (I Samuel 9:2). 1 Samuel 9 & 10 tell the story of how Saul was chosen to be king and his coronation.

What is interesting about Saul before he took the kingship was his incredible humility.

The Bible tells us a few brief stories that show how Saul was humble. On the day that Samuel tells Saul he will reign over Israel, he responds with humility, saying that he is not a man of import in the land.

“And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? wherefore then speakest thou so to me?”
1 Samuel 9:21

A few chapters later in the book we will be granted a glimpse into Saul’s coronation. When the Israelite nation was ready to crown him as their king, where was he? The Bible says he was hiding in the equipment.

“When he had caused the tribe of Benjamin to come near by their families, the family of Matri was taken, and Saul the son of Kish was taken: and when they sought him, he could not be found. Therefore they enquired of the Lord further, if the man should yet come thither. And the Lord answered, Behold he hath hid himself among the stuff.”
1 Samuel 10:21-22

Yet it will only take 5 more chapters of 1 Samuel for Saul to have the kingdom torn away from him because of his mistakes. While it is not clear how much time passed between these sections, it was long enough for Saul to lose his humility. Many people will latch onto this instance as one of those “Power corrupts” moments. But perhaps that is only a part of the story.

Saul was the first king of Israel. There was no previous model on how to be a king and how to manage that kind of pressure and power. Who was expecting a new king to behave differently than Saul did?

They could have modeled the pagan nations and their style of government. This is what Israel did when they demanded a king in the first place. That does not mean a man will know how to handle that power, however. It was a completely new position.

The fact of the matter is that Saul lost his humility.

Even Samuel would note this when Saul was losing the kingdom, saying that at one point Saul was once “little in his own eyes“. And by that, Samuel likely meant that Saul had humility before he was king.

“And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?”
1 Samuel 15:17

Samuel delivered this message immediately after Saul returned from a battle. A battle in which he was commanded to destroy everything. Saul was to take no prisoners and completely destroy the nation. But he elected to keep king Agag alive and spare the best of the animals for sacrifices, or so he claimed.

Notice the language that king Saul uses in 1 Samuel 15 when he is confronted by Samuel. First Saul gives himself the credit. When he sees Samuel he proudly boasts that he can complete the command of the Lord. Yet when Samuel asks about the sound of animals in the background, Saul immediately turns and says that the people wanted to keep those animals. So when Saul thought he was keeping the command of the Lord, he gave himself full credit. But the second he noticed disapproval in the voice of Samuel, he knew he needed to implicate the people in his wrongdoings. Saul ignored God and did what he wanted, and this would cost him the kingdom.

Let us look at the exact account in the bible.

Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, ¹¹“I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. ¹²So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.” ¹³Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”

¹⁴But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”

¹⁵And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.”

¹⁶Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”

And he said to him, “Speak on.”

¹⁷So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? ¹⁸Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ ¹⁹Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”

²⁰And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep, and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

1 Samuel 15: 10-21

When Saul wanted praise he took full responsibility for the victory. when Samuel had to correct him, Saul blamed the people. As you know the story, this book of the Bible ends with Saul’s death on the battlefield. Let’s revisit the first question we asked. What causes a man to end like this?

There is never just one explanation because there are too many variables to consider. All we know is Saul was once a humble man who gained a kingdom and gained power too rapidly and it broke him. What is the point? Humility can decay, which is why it is vital to maintain humility and watch for any drop of ego that might be creeping into our lives. there is no faster way to destroy ourselves than with ego.

Related: Humility

Humility

“The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life.”
Proverbs 22:4

But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
James 4:6

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Luke 14:11

Humility is a trait missing in many men. Lack of humility signifies lack of confidence. Most men boast in order to compensate for an inner feeling of insufficiency. Lack of humility pervades the religious world and is highly concentrated in the youth groups (which should be abolished). Fathers no longer raise their sons to esteem others as equals or to admire men of character. In fact, most fathers are completely disengaged with their sons and would be shocked if they found out what their sons were doing behind their backs.

Fathers do not correct their sons during “adolescence” when they exhibit far too much pride. Nor do fathers prepare their sons to anticipate the biological changes of puberty and help arm them for the constant warfare of sexual discipline. This is because most fathers do not take time to think. They merely impregnated a female and created an offspring, and this does not magically make them good fathers. If men are to learn humility from anyone, it should be from their own father.

You must understand in your own mind that humility is not self-deprecation, even though that can be a byproduct.

Humility is being able to view yourself exactly how you are, not better than you are. Humility is how you view your own importance with respect to the importance of others. Do you think you are the next great thing? Do you think everyone is interested in hearing about your life all the time? You are not humble if you think in this way. Any man who thinks they are great is nothing more than the result of social media-induced egocentrism.

The humble man treats others as if they were better than him, though he does not self-deprecate. Ahumble man does not overestimate his worth or importance, he is acutely aware of his skills and abilities but his ego does not exaggerate them. The humble man does not oversell himself in a job interview, but he still looks for opportunities to advance in career and personal work.

People enjoy being around humble men.

People especially enjoy being around men who are truly excellent at everything they do, yet are still humble. It is one thing to be an average man who is great at nothing and be humble, anyone can do that. It is another thing to be a renowned businessman, builder, thinker or writer and still be humble. Men are drawn to other men who exhibit excellence tempered with humility. No one wants to be around the man who boasts about his career, especially when he is likely not skilled at what he does.

The humble man gives credit to others in his group and team, even if he did the vast majority of the work.

He looks for opportunities to share the credit even if the project was not possible without his involvement. Deep humility distills the need for validation and discards it. The humble man does not feel the constant need to be praised because he has self-esteem.

This image of the humble man is an extreme ideal, and is achieved by almost none, but it should still be striven after. In all things, even if ideals are lofty and appear far off, they should still be aimed at nonetheless. By pursuing huge ideals, we propel ourselves to greatness at any endeavor we choose, even humility.

Mantra

I am behaving with humility.

Application

Pride is a sneaky and deceptive disease. It lies dormant, grows under the skin and bursts out overnight. It is very difficult to recognize pride in yourself because it is a silent disease. Pride is the high blood pressure of the soul – it’s symptomless until it bursts an artery.

Pride is constantly looking for holes in your character to ooze out of. Humility shuts the pride-disease down. Humility begins by programming the mind to be humble first thing in the morning, this is done by using Mantras. Your humility continues to grow day-to-day by becoming more conscious of the disease of pride and crushing it.

Two-thirds of the battle for humility is crushing pride and forcing it into submission to your will.

You must fill in the sinkholes of character before building structures of achievement. In your pursuit of greatness, possessing consciousness of your flaws by your self-awareness is your greatest tool. With this you obliterate vice from the face of the earth, you drive it out from your land.

The last one-third of humility is programming the mind to act with honor, and this is done simply by preparing the mind to be humble before you are in a situation where humility is required. You must stock up supplies to go to war with your pride and beat into subservience.

Tactic I – The Foundation

Detach from yourself. View yourself as a movie character you are watching from the outside.
Examine your personal abilities objectively and with a critical eye.
Realize you are not special.
Work Harder

Tactic II – The Social Setting

Be conscious of yourself when you are in social settings. Observe your interactions in a detached manner – again, as if you were watching yourself as a movie character.
Be prepared to be kind to others and treat them with respect.
Admire others instead of yourself.
Remember you are not special

Crush your pride.

Develop your humility.

Prepare your mind for war until the end. You win or you die.

Conduct yourselves like Men.

Ego: A Defining Trait of a Weak Man

Ego is a hallmark of the beta male. Church youth groups are teeming with ego, you can smell it on them. Wherever you find ego, you can be sure you have found an individual with significant insecurity or stupidity.

Ego is a hallmark of the beta male. Church youth groups are teeming with it and you can smell it on them. Wherever you find ego, you can be sure you have found an individual with significant insecurity or stupidity. The confident man has no need of ego. Ego is an outwardly expressed overcompensation for inner emptiness.

“Pride comes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”.
Proverbs 16:18

“The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled).”
Isaiah 2:12

Ego is what some refer to as “bad pride”.

There is a good type of pride that is fulfillment in your work. There is the negative pride of ego that leads you to believe you are good at something or better than someone. Men who have even a small amount of self awareness know they can constantly improve, and so they reject any type of ego.

There are different levels of ego. The mildest is the boastful form.

This form is found in the lowest of all males; the males who no female would ever mate with. They have the need to talk about themselves or their “accomplishments”, as if anyone in a one-thousand mile radius even cares at all. These men are deluded about how impressive their accomplishments are.

Young men brag about what sport they play (because doing what hundreds of thousands of other males do obviously sets them apart).

They brag about how many girlfriends they have had or how much money they are making. They boast in superficial accomplishments that no one will remember in ten minutes, much less ten years.

Middle aged men brag about their kids. The older man’s children absorbed his entire life so now he is forced to live vicariously through them. He has no pride in what he does, only in his kids. These men do not understand how uninterested in his kids all other men are.

Older men brag about what they did ‘back in their day’ in order to justify their lack of success in the present moment. Low-level ego is spread across all age groups. Low-level ego is a marker for low character and low intelligence.

Another level of ego is the person who gets offended constantly.

Why are your ideas so important that you must be emotionally “Offended” when someone else has a different idea? Why are your philosophies so intertwined with your personality and character that an individual cannot question your ideas without questioning your personally? Here is the answer: your ideas aren’t important; consider putting your ego to death.

KEY: Any idea that is weak and built on unstable grounds must be supported by combining it with emotionalism. Atheism is a prime example of this. Atheists hold beliefs that blatantly violate natural law (Big bang = 1st & 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics, possible Newton’s 1st law, Law of Causality. Spontaneous generation = violates the Law of Biogenesis), and as a result, they are forced to become militant and emotional about their faith in order to justify it. You see this in modern politics as well, where men attack each other’s character instead of questioning one another’s ideas using rationality and a genuine desire for the truth, instead of a desire to hit the opponent with a zinger.

More subtle levels of ego would include simply being defensive at criticism. Why are you being defensive? Ego. Why do you dislike criticism? Ego. “But I have a highly sensitive personality”, no you don’t, you have a weak personality and a huge ego.

Even if you are sensitive, no man may justify his failure or a negative character trait by blaming his personality, that behavior is for the weak.

Ego is the mark of a boy, not a man. Become a man by putting the ego to death or you will die.

Mantra

I walk in humility, and my ego is fading to dust.

Application

Awareness of your own ego is going to be one of your best tools for bringing it under your power. Notice yourself boasting about your petty accomplishments, getting offended by the statements of others or becoming defensive at their criticisms. Noticing your problems is a key to victory in the war of converting those problems into power.

Some men may even find that simply by becoming aware of their ego, it went away. Men who notice it are often so disgusted by how it truly looks that they stop letting their ego determine their actions. They are able to see themselves from the outside.

How am I appearing to others?
How will this statement be taken?
Am I talking about myself in conversation?
Is my tone arrogant?

These are all questions you must ask yourself regularly to exercise the muscle of self-awareness necessary to bring your “bad pride” into submission. Ego stands in the way of your ability to gain power, both personal and worldly.

Shut down your negative character traits one at a time.

Start by killing your boasting habit if you are on that level of character development. Kill that form of ego before moving onto the more slippery and subtle manifestations. Whatever you do, utterly destroy that ego from the face of the earth.

When you interact with others with ego, do not get annoyed. Know that you have found a person with profound weakness of character. This is a man who is either insecure, stupid or both. There is no point in attacking this person directly, you will only enrage him. The way you help this individual is by taking indirect routes of attack and flanking the ego. Do not say to him, “You are really arrogant. You need to work on that ego”. You will only create an enemy if you do this. Instead, outline the benefits of being a man of humility. You have to appeal to the other person’s self-interest or they will not care what you have to say. Just know, that unless a man is willing to change and reduce his ego, there is very little point in trying to help him.

Conduct yourselves like Men