One Step to Happiness

By Ken W. Davies

This book presents an understanding of both pride and humility so that the reader knows how to discard one and embrace the other. The presence of pride or humility can have major consequences in our lives. Pride, said one person, is like bad breath. You're the last person to know you have it. "Relationship problems aboun

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen Culture Solutions
• Release date: Jan 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638125327

Book preview

One Step to Happiness

Copyright © 2022 by Ken Davies.

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63812-532-7

Paperback: ISBN: 978-1-63812-531-0

All rights reserved. No part in this book may be produced and transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Published by Pen Culture Solutions 11/28/2022

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Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW

INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978,

1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of

Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Any text in italics or bold is simply personal emphasis.

One Step to Happiness

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The blindness of pride

Vulnerability to pride

Desire for status

Recognising pride

Possible consequences of pride

Jesus, the model of humility

Our humility

Submission

1. Submission to God

2. Submission to worldly authorities

3. Submission at work

4. Submission in church

5. Faith and Submission

Lack of Humility

Signs of humility

Ignoring status

Appraising self wisely

Serving

False humility

Barriers to humility

Possible consequences of humility

Pride and humility in leadership

God’s activities

Personal growth and progress

Appendix 1: Prayers for humility

Appendix 2: Biblical instructions to serve one another in love

Further Reading

References

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Ken Proctor and Tony Hodgson for the many improvements they suggested to the text of this book. Thanks, guys.

My thanks also go to my Fulfillment Officer, Sam Anderson, for the many amendments to the manuscript, to my wife Guinette for her encouragement and helpful comments on the text, and to Martin Fletcher for the title he suggested.

Introduction

It is a common myth that the way to happiness is through fame and fortune. Youngsters dream of becoming pop stars or footballers, while others dream of winning the lottery jackpot. None of these dreams are sure-fire ways to happiness because some of those who have made it to the top have been honest enough to admit that the success has left them feeling quite dissatisfied and empty.

Since we cannot be assured of happiness at the top, it is worthwhile investigating the bottom—and after all, Jesus did say, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5). There is joy and happiness to be had by being humble. Philip Yancey saw this in practice as he interviewed many people, both stars and servants. The latter included many well-qualified people who worked among the homeless, the suffering, and the outcasts. He said, I would rather spend time amongst the servants than the stars. He went on to say, They possess depth and richness, and even joy that I have not found elsewhere.¹

Jesus possessed much joy in his role as a servant of humanity∗. If we want that joy, we must emulate his servant heart, discarding our pride. That and humility are two topics which rarely get more than a brief mention in the life of the Church, and even then may be poorly understood. I became a Christian in my teens, but even at the age of fifty, I could not have defined or described them well. For the benefit of people in a similar state, I have tried to clarify them so that they can be recognised more easily. We can then see more clearly what effects they each produce.

When a person realises they are proud, it can be like discovering they own a plot of land overgrown with weeds, each a different expression of pride. It has taken a long while for various seeds of pride to take root in our garden, and most of us have not noticed how they were flourishing, nor how deep their roots are. In common with gardening, clearing out these weeds is not just a one-off activity but a matter of frequent attention. Some of us find it difficult to distinguish between weeds and flowers, so this book has been written in the hope that the weeds of pride can be more easily identified and eradicated. The section entitled Recognising Pride contains a list of some symptoms by which pride may be recognised and rooted out.

When we consider humility, we discover that it is like a fragrant flower that cannot be bought at a nursery or transplanted from someone else’s garden. It needs to be nurtured carefully from seed. Just as weeds inhibit the growth of flowers, so pride inhibits the development of humility. Pride must be rooted out if we want to become humble. My personal efforts at weeding will never be complete, but it seemed worthwhile recording here the lessons I have learned for the benefit of others.

This book focuses on presenting an understanding of both pride and humility so that the reader knows how to discard one and embrace the other in order to gain the joy that accompanies it. The presence of pride or humility can have major consequences in our lives, and some of these are mentioned later in the book. We begin by considering how pride may be associated with spiritual blindness.

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∗ See John 15:11 and Luke 22:27

The blindness of pride

What initially prompted me to look at the subject of pride was a section in the book called The Final Quest².It’s a revelation experience that God gave to Rick Joyner. At one point in the experience, Rick was clothed in shining armour, watching Christians battle against a demonic army and winning. An angel near Rick told him to look at some shadowy figures in a small valley nearby. Rick asked if there was some way that he could see these figures better and was given a rather drab cloak. He was told that it was the cloak of humility and that without it, he would not see very well. Once he wore it, he could see these new figures – they were demons of pride, able to attack and weaken the Christians without being seen. With the help of some