Romans 12:3
For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Maaan listen! Lately, I have been feeling. My. Self. I have finally found out who I am, who I want to be and I've made a plan to get there. I'm incredibly imperfect, but I am definitely on my way to bigger and better and I am very aware. I'm about to graduate from my BA program, I'm eating better, dressing better, and I'm putting effort into how I look - some of the time (which is a vast improvement from the none of the time). I'm paying my tithes, volunteering at my church and I recently got a promotion at work. When I know that I have worked at what I'm doing or what I've done I take pride in it. That's me! Uh-huh. I did that! Go me! And don't let me find out I know something. Bruh. If I know it or if I can do it well, than it is well done. I know I have progressed from the train wreck I once was and didn't know how to repair. So now you can't tell me nothing.
And there ladies and gentleman is the brick wall.
I should never place myself in such high esteem that I can't be corrected or improved and sometimes when I'm on a roll I can forget that. I've realized that I can get downright arrogant in some things and I'm so glad that I saw it in myself before God had to humble me, for me. There is nothing wrong with being proud of my accomplishments. There is nothing wrong with hard work and enjoying the fruits of my labor. The problem only comes when I place myself on a pedestal.
Also, there's a LOT of "I" present when I list my accomplishments. All of the things I am most proud of had nothing to do with me. If God had not given me the strength and patience to endure through school I would have given up at the very beginning. Full time employment and being a full time student is HARD. Teaching is very much an all consuming kind of work and to have to spend my nights and weekends doing school work...there were several times where I have just been like : No. I can't. Every time I felt like I couldn't, I KNOW God pushed me through and over. The same can be said for my promotion. When my boss pulled me aside to have the conversation, I just knew I was going to get fired. Not because I wasn't doing my job, but because there were some other things going on in my life and to get fired would have been the icing on the cake. Instead, God saw fit to acknowledge my progress in the form of moving from being a Teacher's Assistant to being the Group Teacher.
You can be proud of you. You can think highly of the things you've done. You can celebrate progress. The key to remaining humble is remembering how you got there. If for every "I" you add "By God's Grace" or "By God's Favor", you keep yourself in perspective internally and then externally. I serve an awesome God and because I am created in His image, I too can be awesome.
And there's nothing wrong with that.