Keeping our pride under wraps is a constant battle.  Our culture doesn’t help us much either since its driven by big egos and fame. Our spiritual effectiveness is based on our understanding of how radically depraved we really are and our realization of a NEED for a Savior.  Pride seems to be at the root of every sin. Pride says to everyone “look at me” or “look what I have done.”  The ugliness of pride can only be restrained through battling everyday through prayer and the study of the Word of God.  But I also find that reading these puritan prayers put me in my place also. :)  Read the following:

Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number,
and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word,
of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life.
My transgressions and short-comings
present me with a list of accusations,
but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me,
for all have been laid on Christ.
Go on to subdue my corruptions,
and grant me grace to live above them.
Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings of the mind
bring my spirit into subjection,
but do Thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused.
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Go on with Thy patient work,
answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers,
and fitting me to accept it.
Purge me from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to Thy rule.
I thank Thee for Thy wisdom and Thy love,
for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,
for sometimes putting me into the furnace
to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.
If Thou shouldst give me choice to live in pleasure
and keep my sins, or to have them burnt away with trial,
give me sanctified affliction.
Deliver me from every evil habit,
every accretion of former sins,
everything that dims the brightness of Thy grace in me,
everything that prevents me taking delight in Thee.
Then I shall bless Thee, God of Jeshurun,
for helping me to be upright.

The LORD detests all the proud of heart. (Proverbs 16:5)