Our Greatest Need?

I have been posing this question in my mind for several days. My reading has brought me to it and the unsettling of the last blog post as well. I want to quote two books, one today and one tomorrow, that get into the depth of what I am talking about.

The first is Humility by Andrew Murray. In it he says this, "The Need. When the Old Serpent, he who had been cast out from Heaven for his pride, whose whole nature as devil was pride, spoke his words of temptation into the ear of Eve, these words carried with them the very poison of hell...poison entered into her soul and blood and life, destroying that blessed humility and dependence upon God which would have been our everlasting happiness. And instead of this, her life and the life of the race that sprang from her became corrupted to its very root with that most terrible of all sins and all curses, the poison of Satan's own pride. All the wars and bloodshed among the nations, all its selfishness and suffering, all its ambitions jealousies, broken hearts and embittered lives...have their origin in this hellish pride, either our own or, that of others, has brought us. It is from our pride that we need, above everything, to be redeemed."

We have no greater need than to be redeemed from our pride. All sin flows from this desire to provide for self. Like an idiot trying to carrying books upstairs while on crutches who falls and hurts himself are we. I can do it, I will take care of it, I can provide for myself.