Pride

For my ten week project, I decided to study the Christlike attributes listed in Preach My Gospel.  It just so happened that the characteristic I was studying last week was humility.  In Preach My Gospel, it says that "The opposite of humility is pride."  That's why verse 24 of 4 Nephi 1 really stood out to me.  It reads:
"And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world."
After many years of the people being united, with no separation of people, some of the people start being prideful.  We see in verse 26 what this lead to:
"And they began to be divided into classes; and they began to build up churches unto themselves to get gain, and began to deny the true church of Christ."
What a sad thing this is to see.  As soon as pride entered the people's hearts, they become a divided people.  They lose the Holy Ghost in their lives and then they start to deny the truthfulness of Christ's church and revolt against it.
From my other studies of pride, I have learned that it makes you do two dangerous things: compare and forget.  First, pride is a sin of comparison.  Pride makes you compare yourself against those who have less than you.  When this occurs, you put yourself on a pedestal and believe that you are better than those around you.  This destroys all humility in your heart, because when this occurs, you automatically forget that we are all children of God.  We all are indebted to our wonderful Heavenly Father.  And, as I mentioned before, when we are comparing, we are usually comparing our strengths to others' weaknesses.  When you see yourself above others, you will do everything to stay there and you are usually unwilling to change yourself.  Your heart becomes hardened.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, it is also dangerous to compare yourself to those who have more than you.  This creates feelings of jealousy and degrades your self worth.  When this occurs, you will be ungrateful for what you have and you will be asking God why you don't have more.  Usually, this type of pride will make someone bitter and unwilling to succumb to Heavenly Father's will.
Pride is also a sin of forgetfulness.  I have noticed time and time again that in the scriptures, people become prideful when they forget the hand of God in their lives.  This can happen both when they forget what God has done to deliver their fathers and when they forget what blessings Heavenly Father has given them in their own lives.  Pride makes you focus on what you have done for yourself and causes you to ignore the blessings in your life that have come from other people.  Wickedness often comes from forgetfulness.  When people forget to see the hand of the Lord in their lives, they are quicker to break covenants and lose the Holy Ghost.
We see how the pride has affected these people.  Because of pride, they are quick to lose everything they have worked so hard for.  The united people quickly divide and the perfect church of Christ quickly dissipates.
Throughout this whole thing, I have thought about how Christ really is the perfect example of humility.  Not once was He ever prideful, and I have to admit there are sometimes when He could have been.  I think of the classic example in the premortal existence.  Satan presents his plan laced with pride--Satan wants all of the credit for his plan to go to himself.  However, when Christ presents His perfect plan, He gives all glory to Heavenly Father.  Also, He was humble enough to submit to Heavenly Father's will, even when it included performing the Atonement.  I am so grateful for Christ's perfect example of humility.