Dealing with my own worst red flags: disdain

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I did intend to write this as a post but then I got caught up in writing edits on my previous post, and now I am tired and it is very late at night (actually we are now in the next morning!) so I will just write out a few bullet points and perhaps compile them into an actual post later.

I have got a very, very ugly aspect of my character which I am mortified about, namely this: I despise people so easily. As a Christian I should not despise anyone. However I sincerely have not known how not to. On this blog I am always shouting about character. And yet I am so aware that this particular character trait of mine is woefully bad. If there was a man who demonstrated this character trait it would definitely be a dealbreaker for me. It occurred to me as I was thinking through this post that actually, even though I am the one demonstrating this character trait it is still a dealbreaker, in that I cannot allow myself to get romantically involved with anyone until this character trait is totally broken from my life.

There are various reasons as to why I developed this character trait in the first place. But you know what? I am a Christian, I have to deal with it.

– I mentally tell people to F*** off in my mind all the time. Not people I am interacting with in real time on a daily basis. But rather a few people that I cycle through in my mind from the past.
– A certain rude song I have composed which consists almost entirely of the phrase F*** off, sung to a certain popular tune. I will often be sitting there singing it to myself almost unconsciously, then I will catch myself and say “I should not be singing this song!” That said, sometimes I do sing it deliberately to myself about certain people.
– Mocking people – so ugly, so not of God. I obviously am not perfect myself. If people wanted to mock me then there are plenty of things they could point at.
– Self-righteousness about my prayer life.

The people I despise most in the entire world are Evangelical Christians. Not all of them, but those ones I deem to be insincere. (As they say, no hate like “Christian love”!) This is because I find them to be so insincere, and I remember all the nonsense I experienced from their hands. I have often thought to myself that if I could learn to think graciously towards these people I think of as insincerists, then I could think graciously about everyone.

There are certain ways in which my prayers have been hampered of late. I have not been making any headway about certain things, and I have not been able to identify the reason why. As I write this post, it finally occurs to me that this is the reason why. This attitude is so ugly before God. No-one needs to tell me how ugly it is. God abhors self-righteousness. Only He is truly righteous, the rest of us borrow our righteousness from him.

These are things I need to keep front of mind; I plan to do this by repeating relevant Bible verses to myself every day or regularly:
– Only God is holy! I am not holy, except for what I “borrow” from God Himself. The Bible says that all our righteousness is as filthy rags.
– I am not better than anyone. I am not “even” better than insincerists, even if they are completely insincere.
-I am not better than…[let me mentally list out each name that I tend to cycle through on my mental list of disdain]

There might well be other things that I need to add to this list but I cannot remember them just now. I hope to add them as I remember them.

Off the top of my head, I think that this is the one big character flaw that I have alongside my erotica habit which I still regularly fall into. My plan and my prayer is to deal with both traits, ASAP. Because I now realise that this is probably what has been hingering my prayers, that makes it all the more urgent.