“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

What about being like children is necessary to be Christ-like?

Children are immature, unexperienced, and unknowledgeable. But they’re also trusting, unpretentious, and totally dependent on their parents. They’re the best illustration of the proper relationship we need to have to God. Of course, like most metaphors, they’re imperfect like any human attempt at communicating complex ideas; however, we can identify the key insight. Jesus wants us to learn how to be humble like a child.

This means unlearning some of what we consider to be virtues of maturing into adults. We think it’s sophisticated to become more skeptical and critical, more in-tune with the nuances of blending in with adult society and being adept at climbing social hierarchies, and becoming increasingly independent and self-sufficient. But these are virtues in a broken world. We wouldn’t have to be skeptical if there weren’t people out there trying to deceive us, or try to create a façade to conform with society if we were perfectly power, or be self-sufficient if our basic needs were always cared for. In trying to adapt to this broken world, we grow in pride.

Augustine considered pride the foundational sin. He wrote, “It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” What is pride? In short, it’s a need for superiority. The idea to be better than others, which is an antithesis of serving others. CS Lewis write, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.” Pride chases dominance and control, and it leads to so many other sins, which is why these writers argue it’s the foundational sin. The pursuit of superiority of others leads not only to careless selfishness but an active contempt towards others. It warps into anger, sorrow, greed, and all the other categories of sins. And, most dangerously, it pushes us into an internal state of establishing a kingdom where we worship ourselves and our own aspirations. This isolates us from God.

CS Lewis expanded on this idea: “Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” The reason pride is the foundational sin and leads to every other sin is because it’s the first step in completely turning away from God. Like a child severing their ties to their from the guidance of their parents, we can’t be corrected if we look only to ourselves and set ourselves as the objects of worship.

CS Lewis warns, “As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.” Pride blinds us from the presence of God because we believe we can take the place of God and determine what will happen next on our own strength and wisdom. We’re the adults. We’re in charge of things and need to use our skills to push forward and shape our future. It sounds so obviously foolish, but we fall into this trap without knowing it. Not only is pride the foundational sin, it’s the sin that is the most subtle.

CS Lewis writes, “The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride—just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer.” Our language is limited in capturing and understanding this foundational sin. We can be “proud” of our loved ones or “proud” of doing good work, and it’s hard to call this a sin. As long as our minds are outside of ourselves and we’re “proud” without giving glory to ourselves and instead praising others, we’re far away from the insidious evil of pride that might be present if we’re “proud” of our loved ones because of how it reflects on us or “proud” of good work was done by you. Even a crude proud attitude to desire to be celebrated because you want the approval of others from a place of insecurity is still better than the “pride” of thinking the approval of others is not necessary because you are so much superior; of course, as CS Lewis advises, it’s better to forget about ourself altogether and serve others and the Lord.

That’s how we fight pride. “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.” CS Lewis continues, “Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call ‘humble’ nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him.” We need child-like humility with all the wisdom and strength of being an adult. We need the wisdom from God to discern and pull apart what’s sinful pride from ourselves and our broken world from the grace and maturity that we’re given from God. We’re tricked by pride into thinking that being more sophisticated and mature means being more confident in our own wisdom and being more self-reliant. But it takes more wisdom and strength to be humble. How much mental strength does it take for Job to continue worshipping God when everything is taken away from him rather than cursing him and taking life into his own hands? How much wisdom does it take for Moses to defy all conventional wisdom of the day and take the Israelites out of Egypt?

The best illustration of child-like humility being warped by this world comes from the period of transition to adulthood: teenagers. Children are awkwardly transitioning into members of this broken world. They search for a new identity away from their parents. They have a naïve belief that heir limited worldview is superior to their parents’. They seek their own freedom and independence from their parents. They come across new hurts, they become skeptical and less trusting, and their childlike joy becomes filtered through having to adapt to the norms of this broken world.

There’s a relationship between pride and a certain kind of anxiety that I can’t get a clear thought about. Maybe an existential anxiety. But I do know that humility is the antidote. I think the essential nature of pride that puts ourselves in the place of God comes into conflict with a world where we aren’t God. We come short. And the anxiety comes from this tension between our internal states and the outer world. But I think this anxiety helps us return to God, like pain helps us to avoid the hot fire. In perfect humility, there is no existential anxiety. In fact, there is no fear of what comes next. There is true freedom in humility because, in total dependence of God, there is nothing to fear in the next step we take.