Lisa Terkers (3:43)

I think this is the tricky thing about pride is that often if you're struggling with pride, you don't know it. Or even worse, you'll say, I'm not prideful.

Jim Kress (3:57)

No, that's not it.

Lisa Terkers (3:58)

You know? And so when you talk about hidden pride, I'm like, okay, then how are we supposed to know? Like, what if I'm secretly really struggling with pride? What if I've got all this hidden pride in my life? Like, what do I need to do about it? And how do I recognize it?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (4:13)

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's do a little bit of a thought. Thought exercise and experiment. Okay. Have you guys heard of this phrase, the seven deadly sins?

Lisa Terkers (4:20)

Yes.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (4:21)

Right. Okay, I'm putting you a little bit on the spot. What are the seven deadly sins?

Lisa Terkers (4:25)

Gluttony.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (4:26)

Okay, that's one.

Jim Kress (4:27)

Lust.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (4:28)

Yep.

Jim Kress (4:28)

Pride of life or just pride?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (4:31)

Pride. Yeah, that's one of them. Yeah. There's greed, there's sloth, there's wrath, there's envy. Right. But here's the interesting thing. If you inverted each of these, you would actually find on. We talked about the spectrum. Right. Of severity, that at the core of each of these is actually something that could be beautiful. Right. So, like, lust is what, desire?

Lisa Terkers (5:01)

Or like, it's a word of being attracted to the one person that God intends for you to have as your husband or your wife.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (5:10)

Right, Right. And then, so if you have somebody, Jim, that comes into a counseling session and goes, well, I'm struggling with lust. What's your response to that?

Jim Kress (5:17)

You want the truth?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (5:18)

Oh, yeah.

Jim Kress (5:19)

I take them to the Greek epithumia, which is an empty cup. It's something empty. Temptation feels the emptiness of the cup. Lust tries to fill the emptiness of the cup. I need to let them see that and say, oh, yeah, what's the emptiness? And they think their emptiness is their enemy. And I say, no, your emptiness is not the enemy. Your demand to fill the emptiness apart from God's ways, that is the enemy.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (5:46)

Absolutely. Absolutely. This is what pride is consistently doing to us. Pride is suggesting to us that the good thing that God has for us can actually become the ultimate thing. And when that thing becomes the ultimate thing, it actually becomes an idolatrous thing.

Jim Kress (6:02)

Boom, boom, boom.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:02)

So look at lust. Okay, I want to go back to that. There's something beautiful that God created of men and women. Right? And there's one thing to be like, oh, yeah, he's handsome, or, yeah, she's beautiful. But pride moves you from this place of, oh, there's beauty, to a place of obsession and objectification.

Jim Kress (6:23)

You're just an object.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:24)

Right. For me to devour Gluttony. Food. Food is a great thing. Right? Like, I enjoy good food.

Jim Kress (6:32)

We know that about you, Joel.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:34)

Do you really?

Lisa Terkers (6:35)

Yes.

Jim Kress (6:35)

You actually enjoy bad food sometimes.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:38)

But you guys will all be happy.

Lisa Terkers (6:40)

God made us to consume food. He did not make food to consume us.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:45)

Okay, So I literally. You guys, this is so, so wild. I hired a nutritionist. You guys don't even know this. You don't even know this.

Jim Kress (6:52)

You're looking marvelous over there. Yep.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (6:53)

I hired a nutritionist about over a month ago, and we had a two hour long conversation, and it was one of the most brilliant conversations I've ever had because I've always felt like I either do my workout really well and I'm horrible with my food, or I do my food really well and I'm horrible with my, like, working out. And food has always been like the kryptonite for me. You have a bad diet, right? Yeah. Yeah. And what my nutritionist said is actually so fascinating. He goes, joel, your fundamental relationship with how you relate to food has to change.

Jim Kress (7:21)

That's bottom line, isn't it?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (7:22)

Right? Like, I come to food actually for a source of emotional, physical, and in a way, spiritual satisfaction. And so food actually has a hold over me versus my relationship with food is actually. No, it's giving me health. There's nutrition to it. And it's a total different category. And so these are the types of things that I think like. And we can move on. Greed. You know, having financial stability is a good thing. Right. But when financial stability becomes the ultimate thing in your life, and now you move from that into becoming obsessive of gaining wrath and all these things, there's something about actually justice that we should desire. Justice is a good thing. But when you go from justice to revenge or justice to wrath, these are all detrimental things. And so going earlier to our conversation and how you started, Lisa, nobody ever wakes up out on three one day, like you just said, and says, I'm going to. But what they do, just like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And just like this big question that we have to just process ourselves is, what is the curious thought that we're entertaining in our lives, that if we cultivate that, if we allow that thing to flourish, is actually going to become incredibly deceptive and destructive things in our lives? Jim, I found a really fascinating Greek word, and I know you love Greek. It's narcheo. Narcheo. And what? Narcheo. We can probably hear the root of.

Jim Kress (8:49)

That from, well, either narcotic or narcissism.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (8:53)

And both apply in this situation. Narchao, this is so fascinating. Narchao actually has to do with growing numb over a period of time. Growing numb over a period of time. What pride, I think, is doing to us, it's actually inviting us into a type of numb life. And it's happening over a period of time. And so, Joel, it makes me think.

Lisa Terkers (9:16)

Of this verse, I can't remember, it might be in Micah, where it says, oh, man, what does God require?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (9:22)

Micah 6, 8.

Lisa Terkers (9:23)

Yeah. And it says to act justly, to love mercy. Love mercy and walk humbly with our God. And I think walking humbly with our God is a really important thing here.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (9:39)

Yeah, absolutely. And that it's the humility piece that actually brings out the love and the justice and the mercy. So we've kind of identified what is pride doing. Pride is promising us clarity, and it's leading us into chaos and confusion. What is the gift of humility? The gift of humility is actually the gift of self awareness, where we can actually see ourselves rightly, that we can be rightly ordered. There's a famous quote in saying, it's historically attributed to CS Lewis. Humility is in thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less often. Just a side note, y'all always dangerous to disagree with C.S.

Lisa Terkers (10:20)

Lewis.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (10:21)

So I'm not going to disagree with Lewis, but I'm going to suggest this. I actually don't think biblical humility starts with the self. Biblical humility, first and foremost, starts with God.

Jim Kress (10:30)

I like that.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (10:31)

And so if I can know who God is, then I can know who I am. And if I know who God is, And I know who I am, made in the likeness and image of God, then I can know how I ought to rightly relate to other people who are made in the likeness and image of God. And notice what happens here. First, I have peace with God. Now if I have peace with God, I've got peace internally. And if I've got peace internally, I'm actually powerfully equipped to pursue peace with other people. And this is what humility is doing. Humility is regaining for us the gift of self awareness.

Lisa Terkers (11:09)

I think one of the most peaceful places that I can ever put myself in is just on my face before the Lord and listening to praise songs and participating in praise songs and getting my face into God's word. Because when we're. When we know God's word, we can better discern his will. But it requires that posture of humility, that posture of acknowledging our dependence on Him. So the Lord wants us on our face before him. And there's two pathways to get there. I think it's either the pathway of humanity humiliation or the pathway of humility. The only difference is one chooses to bow low while the other trips and falls there. But we both wind up on our face before the Lord. And so I think the choice here is do we pursue humility in absolute dependence on God, which will give us the peace that passes all understanding, or do we go our own way and think, you know, yeah, good suggestions, God, but I'm really, I've got it from here, you know? And we rise up in pride and put ourselves in that position where we're striving so hard. There's no peace in that, and where everything depends on us. No human heart was made to carry the weight of figuring out life on their own. And yet so many of us work our emotions into a tangled fray and our fingers to the bone trying to do just that.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (12:37)

Yeah, exactly. I know, Jim, we. When I was working and really researching and writing the Hidden Piece, one of the big questions that kept coming up was, is there ever an appropriate time to have pride? And is humility always going to leave me in a place of weakness and being subjugated and people are going to walk all over me? I'm curious, from a therapeutic standpoint, like how should we be thinking about pride? Is there any positive side to pride or is it all just purely negative?

Jim Kress (13:05)

You know, you and I, this is a bit of a stretch, but you and I can meet for dinner and then we can have meat at dinner. Words are important, right? I'm very proud of my grandchildren. If they get a grade, they draw me a picture. Granddaddy, so proud of you. My kids and their livelihood and business and some good news comes which happened recently. I'm just really proud of you. I like to say that I'm really proud of you. You know where I go? God at the baptism and then at the mount of transfiguration, the ultimate father. This is my boy. This is my son. That's my boy there. That's my boy. This is my son, whom I love. I'll say it in the entire world, I love my son and in whom I am well pleased. You see, that's a stretch, but I could see, you know, that's my son and I'm proud of him. So there's a level that I'm saying I'm really proud of you. You know what? When I do my work, we all do our work. I want to say, Lisa finishes a book, you finish a book, say, I'm really proud of myself. I really did a good job. I want to take listen pride in my work. I think that's a good use of the word. And I who did not write the future best selling book that you've written seriously. But inside I'm aware I have self awareness that is different than me taking that. Like Lisa's talk taught us here about the severity and the spectrum and all that is to say, well, I'm so proud of my kids. And sometimes every now and then, not quite I can get in the flesh and want to sharpie out the people that says my kid is on the honor roll at so and so school. I'm like, okay. And I get kid. I don't think that. But there's a sense that I don't know when the tipping point is. Often I know it for me I'll think that's unhealthy pride. Now you're like bragging to everybody, look what your kids are doing. Or whatever else. I just want the awareness. But there are times I'm even proud of me. I said, jimbo, you did a good job today. You helped some people. But that's not an unhealthy pride. May I ask a question? Follow up back to the author. I'm big on with people about the action that I'm not worried about people being humble. He's a. She's a humble person. I see so much in the text and people quote, Philippians start over. They quote, quote, help me here in Peter casting all your cares on him and he cares on you, which is a participle. While you're doing the command, which is humble yourself. And what I see is that I work with people from a therapeutic side, which I'm a biblical counselor too. And saying, where are you bowing the knee? Where are you humbling yourself versus I think I'm humble today. But you've written the book on it. How much action is in this idea that I'm humbling myself? I'm just not humble person.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (15:44)

Yeah, no, that's good. One of the more fascinating things about this whole thing was actually an understanding of humanity's natural state in creation, right? So think about this, that God. So this is the word picture to think about God, the king of the cosmos on bended knee. This is kind of how I envision it. Comes down onto earth, bends down from the dust, from the ground, which is actually from the original root words where we get the word humility from humus and from the Latin word as well in Hebrew, Adam and Adama. But he actually creates humanity. And then think about this, fascinating. He breathes the breath of life into Adam and Eve. He creates them, he forms them. And the text in Genesis 2, 15, 16, it says that then God lifts them, he places them in Eden. Now the question is, where is Eden? Eden is actually on a mountaintop. So how do Adam and Eve get from the lowliness of the earth to the heights of a mountaintop? Nothing because of their own doing, but everything because of what God has done. God has taken their humble status and their posture and has exalted them and lifted them up. They're passive participants. And so the beauty of it is the natural state of Adam and Eve in Eden was a posture of humility. Humanity's natural posture, the way that God has created us, is actually a posture of humility. And so what pride is actually doing to us, it's robbing us of our humanity. The more that we practice pride and we, and we step into that, that it's actually stripping us of our humanity. When we practice humility, we're actually regaining our humanity. We're returning to the ideal of Eden. Lisa, one of the things that I think is so fascinating about you, and I'm going to say this, you won't ever say this about yourself, is you've written 30 books, right? Multiple New York Times best selling books. I know the next book that you're working on is a book on trust. And we're so excited about that. And yet you are. And Jim, I think you can agree with it. And everybody who's in our room just recording right now, would say this about you. You're one of the most grounded people that I know. What has been the thing in your life that has kept you grounded throughout? What maybe other people will be like, wow, that is immense success. What has just kept you grounded in this process?

Lisa Terkers (18:17)

Well, thank you for your kind words.

Jim Kress (18:20)

I agree.

Lisa Terkers (18:20)

By the way, this was not part of the script, so it is now. Thank you. I would say from a spiritual standpoint, I think about this often. I think when we get to heaven, I think we're going to be very surprised at what matters most. I think what appears very big and important here on earth is actually going to be pretty small in heaven. And I think what appears maybe small here on earth could possibly be some of the most significant things in heaven. I picture one day, and I hope that this conversation has had between me and the Lord. I hope I do hear, well done, good and faithful servant. But I don't think it's going to be because of what I did. I don't think it's going to be because, you know, wow, Lisa, you wrote a lot of books, you know, wow, you stood on some big stages. You know, I don't think that's. I think it's going to be more like, hey, remember that random Tuesday where you were in the grocery store and you saw this mom and she was by herself, maybe she was even a single mom, and her kids were just all around her and other people were judging her because her kids were sort of losing it. And you could just see the weight of that situation on her. And remember when you just walked up to her and you said, hey, you are doing better than you think you are. Bad moments don't make bad moms. And remember when you did that, well done. Like, well done. So you know what keeps me grounded is that perspective from a spiritual standpoint, but also from an emotional standpoint. I think it's just very, very apparent that the spotlight never fixes anyone. The spotlight only exposes all the issues you have for all the world to see. And so I think the minute I think, like, wow, I'm all that is a minute that I am exposing myself without the protective covering of God. I don't want to do that.

Jim Kress (20:52)

Boy, that's beautiful. Thanks for seriously, the lead into that. This is a powerful moment right here. Authentic. May I ask a question? I don't want to you always, and so does Lisa. You encourage me to think you inspire. I won't say you make me think. You inspire me to think so. If this is already stuff you've covered before, please be kind to an older man. Early on, we got Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve. We hear all that. I'm sitting here listening to both of you today and thinking, okay, one step past them, you know, the first grandchild murdered the second. And I see, per your book, per God's truth, that Abel humbled himself and said, if that's what you want, God, I will do this. I will give you. Of the flock, Cain went in pride, same bid, same request, whatever, and came that quick on saying, oh, no, I'm doing it my way. I mean, we barely started. I know. Adam and Eve did it too, and they blame people. It's the devil. It's that woman you gave me. But early on, right away, the first offspring, one said, I shall humble myself and was murdered for it. And the other one said, no, no, no, I'm going to in pride, do that. This thing got off from the get go. I know, we know that, but it's like to stop for a moment, C lobby ponder and go from the get go. We've had two paths we can take.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (22:13)

Absolutely. Lisa, as I reflect on what you just said and what Jim said, I wrote down some notes because you modeled it for us. And Jim, you just unpacked it. Even in the Kin and Abel story, the first thing you said was, thank you.

Jim Kress (22:30)

It's beautiful, right?

Dr. Joel Mutamali (22:32)

It's just such a simple acknowledgement. It's not like, no, those big things aren't true. It's just, thank you. And when we acknowledge as a thank you, what we're actually acknowledging is the goodness of God in our lives, that is God's kindness, that's God's good pleasure. Right? So, yeah. And then the second thing that you did was you gave us insight into perspective, into true kingdom perspective, from the wisdom that comes from above, not from the wisdom that comes from below. That actually wants to invert that perspective. The Cain and Abel story that wants to invert and corrupt God's good design and desire for us. This is why I think that humility is the message. Not just for today, but it's been the message from yesterday and from the beginning of creation. It's going to be the message from until Jesus comes back. This is why I'm so committed to this message, is my. My life message, because I really do believe that humility is a protection, a prevention and a preservation. You modeled it for us too, Lise. Humility protects us from thinking too low of ourselves. Because if we think too low of ourselves, inevitably we'll be walked all over. But Y'all, we are children of the King, of the cosmos, made in his likeness and in his image. Like you daughter are a daughter of God, you son or a son of the King. I choke a little when I say this, but like, yeah, you can walk with just a little bit of swagger, not because of who you are, but because of who dad is. Right. Humility is also a prevention. Humility prevents us from thinking too much of ourselves because if we think too much of ourselves, inevitably we will be the ones who are walking all over other people. And then lastly, and you talked about it as you think about what is that conversation going to be like? And I think you're going to have that conversation. What is that moment, that holy humility moment that you get to exercise that you've been practicing and cultivating on this side of eternity that's going to come into fruition with King Jesus himself? What does that look like? I think humility is a preservation. It preserves us in the faithful life of Christ. And if you're feeling unsafe and if you feel like things are out of control and if you feel like your weaknesses are liabilities in your life, friends, like humility is such a gift because it places you in the safest place that we possibly could be and that is in the faithful hands of Jesus. And so I'm so grateful for the both of you having this conversation and being vulnerable and sharing on it it because I really believe that humility is not just a checklist that we're going to check off and move on from. Humility is in fact the very soil of the Christian life that we live from.

Lisa Terkers (25:22)

Thank you, Joel.

Jim Kress (25:24)

Thank you, Joel. Thank you, Jim.

Dr. Joel Mutamali (25:25)

Wow.

Shea Hill (25:28)

Wow. I loved that conversation. It was so interesting to hear all of their perspectives around this topic of humility and pride. I feel like pride cry can be one of those things that it actually feels a little scary. But honestly, today's conversation was sobering in a really helpful way. Humility is the way of Jesus and he can help us walk in that posture. Friend, as you continue to work through what you're walking through, I want you to grab a copy of Dr. Joel Mutamali's new book, the Hidden Finding True Security, Strength and Confidence through Humility. Through the pages of this book, Joel will help you walk through hurtful situations in the most God honoring way by gaining a true understanding of Biblical humility. Get your copy today from the P31 bookstore by simply clicking the link in our show notes. And if you want to go deeper into this topic, I have some great news for you. The Hidden Piece is our July Book Club pick in Circle 31 Book Club. Circle 31 is completely free to join and it's been amazing to see this community of women just really connect and honestly, the whole community's really taken off since we launched only a few months ago. When you join, you'll get Access to exclusive Circle31 member perks like weekly videos from Joel and you'll even have the opportunity to join a grow group which are our P31 staff led community groups. They're full of women who will encourage you in your current season of life as you apply the truths that you discover in the book. You can simply visit circle31.org to join today. Well, that's all for today friends. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Therapy and Theology. Therapy and Theology is brought to you by Proverbs 31 ministries where we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything.