The Instinct of Sarcasm: The Story of CainSample

Cultivating Self-Suspicion

If the way of Cain is self-indulgence hidden by immature sarcasm then I want to suggest that the proper alternative is self-suspicion. That is the best way I know to define humility. Humility is a willingness to be suspicious about your own ideas, instincts, and desires.

That was the unique challenge Cain faced. He couldn’t recognize the danger of his own motives. His pride kept him from seeing the grace God was offering by God’s warning. Pride is always like that. It makes everything a quarrel. It makes everything a fight. The moment we are questioned we feel the need to defend ourselves. Always on the defensive, we become overconfident in our own evaluations and opinions.

You can see it in Cain’s reactions. To be rejected by God hurts. But his pride immediately puts him on the defensive. He becomes bitter. God sees injustice and Cain can’t even recognize his inclination toward murder as a bad decision. To him, it seems like the only control he still possesses. He can’t retaliate against God but he can against the one God favors.

It’s all so sad and small-minded, but pride is like that. It contracts the world. It shrinks the possibilities of the moment down to our own self-centered vision. The only way to break its spell is the simple, but profoundly subversive thought, perhaps I am wrong.

James captures this in the opening of his fourth chapter. Sin leads to quarrels and fights. It leads to murder and jealousy. It leads us to covet and to spend all our effort and attention on fulfilling our own passions. Here too, James urges that we resist the devil as God warned Cain that sin crouched at the door, it does at each of our doors as well. We must rule over it.

So James concludes, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God.”

That is the work of humility. Submission.

Humility is a characteristic Christians spend plenty of time talking about, but in my experience, we aren’t exactly sure how to cultivate it. We imagine it's enough to not brag. We lace our speech with self-deprecation. We say all the right things, but pride is far more insidious than that. It hides. It crouches.

I want to suggest you cultivate a habit of self-suspicion. That doesn’t mean you’re always down on yourself. It doesn’t mean you always assume you are wrong. Self-suspicion means you learn to suspect your first instinct. It means you suspect your feelings, emotions, and desires.

Perhaps they are pure, perhaps not. You recognize that by yourself, you’re not in the position to judge. You need God. You need the disciplining work of his word and Spirit. You need the divine lesson.

By humility, you break the way of Cain and open yourself to true growth, true maturity, and a better instinct. It’s by this self-suspicion you grow as a man.

Humility is the doorway to everything God wants to do in your life. It's the doorway that leads to becoming a better man.

Do you recognize this self-suspicion in your life or are you prone to trust your first instinct?