Photo by ATCrossland

By Diana Kim

I was in a pastoral staff meeting when one of the pastors asked for suggestions and assistance on a certain matter. Without thinking too much about it, I jumped in with my two cents; a co-pastor was asking for help so it made sense that I would contribute as a means of helping. After my response, a fellow pastor (more senior than myself) said to me, “You speak with such assurance and confidence.” This wasn’t necessarily a compliment. When read and heard between the lines, this pastor was saying, “You don’t know everything so be quiet.” What I had said out of a desire to help a fellow pastor was received as me being arrogant.

In various interactions with students and friends, if I am to point out my own strengths or if I say something that makes me sound proud they will jokingly remind me to be humble. Because I know that pride is something I am continually working on, I appreciate their reminders. But is this a matter of pride and arrogance or a matter of confidence?

We are taught to be humble and to not be proud, to clothe ourselves in humility and to put aside pride, that which is in opposition with God. While this is true, we seem to have morphed humility to equal self-deprecation and pride to equal self-confidence. If self-confidence is equated to pride, then does that mean, in order for us to be humble, we cannot have confidence in ourselves, assurance in who we are and what we do? (I do not intend to mean this as us having confidence in ourselves over God, rather that we have confidence in the person that God has made us to be, as His children.)

I will be the first to admit that, depending on the space I am occupying, my tone of voice can seem haughty and proud (though I don’t intend it to be); this has come from years of training and public speaking and learning to navigate a patriarchal society in which I would only be heard if I could speak with authority and confidence. But with this morphed notion of pride and humility, then, am I too proud? Because I speak with confidence, do I need to check my pride? Should I be self-deprecating and put myself down as a means of being humble?

The obedient Korean daughter in me wants to say “yes”. The older (and possibly wiser) woman in me says “no”. Of course I don’t say this to encourage unnecessary haughtiness or obnoxious pride, but we have so narrowed the line between pride and confidence that we can’t differentiate the two anymore. There is a difference between the two. While we must definitely keep our pride in check, we must also be willing to celebrate the successes and joys in our lives. Instead of self-deprecating and “humbly” waiting for someone else to applaud us, why shouldn’t we be able to celebrate ourselves?

The “nurturing” side of women might call us to be sweet, encourage, and celebrate others. And in the busyness of lifting up those around us, we forget to nurture ourselves. Why are we expected to encourage and celebrate others but we can’t (shouldn’t) do that for ourselves? To take this to an extreme, is self-nurturing then perceived as a selfish act of pride?

In Jesus’ parable about the lost being found, when the woman who found her lost coin called all her friends and neighbors to rejoice with her, she wasn’t rebuked nor was she told not to brag about her coin. Instead, her friends and neighbors joined in her celebration. There is assurance in what she has achieved which then allows her to call to those around her.

Can we have confidence in who we are and be able to project our confidence without it being perceived as pride? This depends not just on the one projecting but also on the one perceiving. However, fear of how we are to be perceived should not restrict us from having confidence, nor should it skew our understanding of confidence to mistake it for pride.

Diana Kim is a pastor of a local Korean church in Torrance, CA. Her primary goals in serving are to teach and equip the next generation to be passionate for Jesus and to live out His passion and care for the world. Diana is currently a PhD student at Fuller Theological Seminary and is majoring in Christian Ethics. Her current research area of interest is Asian American feminist ethics.