The Hidden Link Between Lust and Pride
A warning for all Christian men.
One of the main reasons why so many men seem to be losing the fight against lust is that they fail to identify the triggers that lead them to acting immorally. While some triggers are easy to identify (provocative content in social media, for example), others are much subtler, and thus sometimes completely unrecognizable unless you know beforehand how to spot them.
A few years ago, a very wise priest told me something that completely changed the way I understood the battle against lust.
Since it was a while back, I don’t remember what he said word for word, but the central concept was that lustful actions are very often consequences of pride.
He mentioned how it’s common for lust to creep in when you’re feeling high and mighty, maybe particularly proud for something you accomplished, because that’s when you most often let your guard down, begin trusting in your own power, and forget that it’s God who strengthens and protects you.
This is something that usually happens to those men who have made solid spiritual progress: they start to grow in confidence, and then, almost without warning, they find themselves falling for a temptation they thought they had largely defeated. And the fall seems completely random, but that’s precisely because the prideful trigger was carefully hidden and was therefore not recognized on time.
A Hidden Trigger
Like we mentioned earlier, those who struggle with lust usually learn to recognize its most obvious triggers: boredom, social media, certain TV shows or movies, stress, loneliness. And those are all real and worth keeping under control. But because they are obvious, they are also the easiest to eradicate.
Pride, on the other hand, is very subtle, very quiet, and thus, much more dangerous. The reason why pride is a trigger for lust is that when you have just succeeded at something or gained recognition or praise, it’s common to start believing that you have it all under control. You look back at your accomplishments (which aren’t really yours), and you start to believe that you are just great. That belief carries with it a subtler one that claims that you don’t really need God’s help. And as you can probably imagine, that’s the crack through which lust enters.
What pride does, in essence, is that it displaces God from the center. And when God is displaced from the center, everything becomes disordered: the lower appetites rush in to fill the space, you lower your guard, you become careless, and you forget that you’re too weak to be flirting with temptation. By letting yourself believe you are strong enough, you lose the very strength that was sustaining you. The moment you forget that God is the source, you lose the source.
The Solution?
1) Humility
The good news is that now that you know that pride serves as a hidden trigger for lust, you can be aware of it and seek to remain humble even when the world tries to make you believe in your own greatness. One thing I’d recommend is that you train yourself to react with a short prayer any time you start thinking prideful thoughts. Whenever you begin to contemplate your own successes or imagine all the praise you’ll receive or have received for a certain accomplishment or action, instantly shift your focus to praying the Jesus prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
The discipline of following every prideful thought with a prayer that reminds you that you’re a sinner saved by Grace is extremely powerful, not just to avoid thinking too highly of yourself, but also, as we’ve seen, to prevent pride from becoming a hidden trigger for lust.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you won’t ever fail again. You probably will. That’s the race we run, and we must persevere. But discovering this subtle trigger will undoubtedly help you be more aware and remain more vigilant against lust.
It’s also encouraging to remember that God is so good that He turns even your mistakes into grace. Even though He never wants you to sin, sometimes falling can become a blessing because it keeps you humble and aware that you cannot make any real progress without Him.
2) Accountability
Accountability works because it also fosters humility. It forces you to recognize your failures and mistakes to others (whether that be confessor, a spiritual director, or a fraternity of men), which directly combats pride by making it impossible for you to ignore all the flaws you have and all the ways in which you are fully dependent on God. You simply cannot pretend you “have it under control” when you persistently show up and admit to other men that you’ve failed again. This is why the sacrament of confession is so powerful.
The accountability relationship itself is what keeps pride from settling in, which in turn keeps the door closed that pride would otherwise open to lust. A common problem men have nowadays is that they don’t have likeminded men around them who can provide this structure of accountability. You should start with confession, sure, but sometimes you also need a group of other men who are fighting the same battle so you can face it in a fraternity, not alone and isolated.
There’s an amazing app called Relay which provides precisely that accountability structure. They are official partners of Ad Aeternum, so you can try it out for free and see if it helps you with the code AETERNUM here. Some of my closest friends have told me it has made a huge difference in helping them quit pornography after many other methods have failed, so I strongly recommend you try it out.
Conclusion
Understanding the connection between pride and lust gives you a tool to combat sexual immorality that most men never receive: it’s a line of defense that works even before lust appears. You can now recognize a “higher-level” trigger beyond the obvious ones, and thus prevent lust from arising even earlier.
Additionally, the awareness that you’ll build from now on, held consistently, will itself be a form of the humility that protects you.
Just remember to maintain God at the center, by being grateful for all the blessings He’s given you, by directing all praise for Him, and by admitting that everything you’ll ever accomplish is thanks to Him and His everlasting love for you.
Ad Maiora Nati Sumus,
Juan
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Thank you for offering valuable advice for those suffering from the sin of lust. Humility is key in our battle against it, to be sure. I recently penned a column on this very topic and remarked on the saints who struggled with this very problem. We are in good company.
I also think that the music we listen to makes a big difference as well. Praying the daily rosary has really been a game changer for me too. Our Lady of Mount Carmel pray for us sinners.