There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: (#1) haughty eyes... (Proverbs 6:16-17a)

I'm going to come right out and tell you that I've got some pride issues.  Consistently, throughout my life, I've struggled with an imbalance on the scale of pride to humility:  sometimes so confident and self-righteous that I become a sort of god in my own eyes, sometimes too fearful of my own limitations that I have a hard time believing how God could work through me at all.  God has helped me to come a long way over time; still, I try to be always mindful of the pride factor in my life.  Pride can lead to so many other sins (idolatry, greed, gluttony, lust, and judgmentalism, to name a few), it's not surprising that "haughty eyes" top the list of the things that the LORD hates.

Because I've been dealing with this issue of pride for so long, and because I've spent some deliberate time reflecting on this particular weakness, perhaps it could be instructive to share some of my classic "Pitfalls of Pride."  It's sort of like a confessional, I guess -- but my hope is that it could also be a sort of diagnostic tool, to help you evaluate if any type of "haughty eyes" might be starting to get the best of you.  Here are five of the top Pitfalls of Pride that I've noticed in my own life:

1. Preparing for Court - I don't actually go to court all that often -- either literally or figuratively -- but I often seem to slip into a pattern of living my life as if I were some sort of district attorney, constantly building up a mental "file" against a person, to be used "in court" if any sort of dispute were ever to break out.  In my head, the file against me is pretty thin; while other people have entire file cabinets devoted to categorizing their offenses against me.  If anyone ever crosses me, I start sorting through the files, figuratively speaking, and preparing to blast the other person to smithereens in court.  We all probably do this to a certain extent.  But when you really stop and think about it, you can see that it's all really just an exercise in pride.  The fact is that we're all sinners, saved purely by grace (see Ephesians 2:8-9), and we actually take on the role of Satan if we ever take on the role of the accuser (see Revelation 12:10)!  None of us could ever stand up in God's "Court of Law!"  But thanks to Jesus, we've all been given a reprieve.  I don't need to prepare for court, and if I ever catch myself doing so, I need to remind myself that God hates pride more than any other sin.
2. The Blame Game - This is a variation on the theme of preparing for court -- but this comes into play particularly whenever I might have to play the role of defendant.  If something goes wrong, I naturally tend to seek ways to shift the blame to other people and other circumstances.  I never want it to be my fault, because that would seem to put some sort of blemish on my "otherwise spotless" record.  But the fact is that when something goes wrong, there are often so many circumstances at play that blame cannot ever be concentrated on one particular factor.  And even if it could, it's prideful and disgusting for us to play the role of blame-assigner.  Magnanimity goes a lot further than blame.  It's better to be open to examing one's own potential faults than to be pridefully casting blame on others.
3. "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going" - When life circumstances become challenging, my response to the difficulties often demonstrate how well I'm dealing with my own pride and haughtiness.  If I turn to God in desperation and dependence, then I'm doing all right; this is the appropriate response to difficult circumstances (see 1 Peter 5:7).  But if I draw the conclusion that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps, work harder, and get leaner and meaner to make it through the difficult times -- then I'm acting in pride, effectively putting myself in the role of God.  And whenever I put myself in the role of God, I'm using my "haughty eyes" and not my eyes of faith.  This can be an especially challenging manifestation of pride to overcome, but still it's good to remember that God hates haughty eyes.  And so should I...
4. The White Knight Complex - This is a variation on the theme of "when the going gets tough, the tough gets going."  Except it's worse because it basically involves me trying to play the role of God for someone else's life!  When I slip into the role of the "White Knight," I view every person who's going through any sort of difficulty as a sort of "Damsel in Distress" -- desperate for my intervention, my riding in to save the day.  I realize that it's foolish, of course, when I really think about it.  But I find myself doing this far more than I'd like to admit.  In order to shake off my "haughty eyes" in this regard, I've learned that I need to entrust each individual in my family, in my church, in my neighborhood to God Himself, and not try to immediately assume the mantle of Savior.  And things go so much better, when God is given His rightful role as Savior. :-)
5. Praise Hound - Another classic pitfall is my reaction to praise from other people.  When I'm acting from a place of pride, I tend to really seek out and bask in the glow of others' opinions of my actions.  If people are saying a lot of nice things about me, I'm up; if people are saying negative things about me or saying nothing at all, I'm down.  This is pretty natural for most human beings.  However, when praise becomes my primary motivation and decision-making stimulus -- I open myself up to grave danger, both of making bad decisions and of setting myself up for a big fall from my prideful perch.  Instead of working to please God, I've learned that I need to redirect my energies (and sense of needing affirmation) to God and His Word.  It's not always easy to do this -- because other people's feedback can be so immediate and audible -- but it's always better, when it comes to avoiding the detestable sin of haughty eyes.

These are only a few possibilities for how pride can manifest itself in our lives.  But hopefully they provide some food for thought.  If you have any other ideas, in fact -- about how pride manifests itself in your own life -- I'd be curious to hear about them in the comments here below.  But more than anything, the main motivation is not identifying particular scenarios -- but generally keeping ourselves from pride.  The LORD hates pride, also known as "haughty eyes," and so should we.