Zeal or Pride?

I got this quote from a minister at Breakthrough Urban Ministries in Chicago. He got it from Breakthrough's executive director. This quote is.....wow. I can't speak for the calling to other areas of ministry, but for the urban minister there is incredible truth here.

It also reminds me of one of my favorite verses. "Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord." ~Romans 12:11

How important it is to know the difference between pride and Christ-honoring zeal. How important it is to draw near to the Savior to recognize the difference.

"Those of us who do work explicitly defined as Christian..live in an
especially hazardous environment, for the very nature of the work is a constant
temptation to sin. The sin is, to put an old word on it, pride. But it is often
nearly impossible to identify as pride, especially in its early stages. It looks
and feels like energetic commitment, sacrificial zeal, selfish
devotion.

But something almost always goes wrong. In our zeal to proclaim the Savior
and enact his commands, we lose touch with our own basis and daily need for the
savior. We feel so good, so grateful, so saved. And these people around us
are in such need. We throw ourselves recklessly into the fray. Along
the way most of us end up so identifying our work with Christ's work that Christ
himself recedes into the shadows and our work is spotlighted at center
stage. Because the work is so compelling, so engaging - so right - we
work with what feels like divine energy. One day we find ourselves (or
others find us) worked into the ground. The work may be wonderful, but we
ourselves turn out to be not so wonderful, becoming cranky, exhausted, pushy, and
patronizing in the process.

The alternative to acting like gods who have no need of God is to become
contemplative ministers. If we do not develop a contemplative life
adequate to our vocation, the very work we do and our very best intention,
insidiously pride-fueled as they inevitable become, destroy us and with whom and
for whom we work.

Contemplation comprises the huge realities of worship and prayer
without which we become performance-driven and program-obsessed ministers.
A contemplative life is not an alternative to the active life, but its root and
foundation. True contemplatives are a standing refutation of all who
mislabel spirituality as escapism. If ministers do not practice the
contemplative life, how will people know the truth of it and have access to its
energy? The contemplative life generatesand releases and enormous
amount of energy into the world-the enlivening energy of God's grace rather than
the enervating frenzy of our pride."

-Eugene Peterson Under the Unpredictable Plant