Pride

“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling.” Proverbs 16:18

Patricia Heaton is known best for her role as Debra Barone on the TV series, ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’ Heaton has taken strong moral stances in the Hollywood culture and is vocal about her faith in Christ. When speaking of her four children, she said, “More than anything, I want my children to have a personal daily relationship with the Lord.”

In 2003, she played the lead part of Paula in a network remake of Neil Simon’s ‘The Goodbye Girl.’ While shooting the film in Vancouver, she visited a small Presbyterian church down the street from her hotel and received a strong message about ‘pride.’ She noticed most of the people were elderly, the choir had about six people who couldn’t sing, and the service seemed disjointed.

She found herself thinking, “This is ridiculous. Do they think this is accomplishing anything?” At that point God broke through and she became acutely aware of her condemnatory attitude. She then thought, “It’s amazing how much you can sin just sitting in a pew in church.”

It caused her to think more deeply about human depravity. She said, “I just thought, we really are hopeless. There’s nothing in us that’s righteous at any given moment. Even if you have some kind of pure motive on one hand, just give yourself five seconds.”

Pride is usually closer than we think.