Here is another thing: When you feel down, you have been relying on yourself too much. Rely on Me, and a burden will be lifted from your shoulders. You cannot carry what you cannot carry. You cannot carry the weight of the world. You cannot even carry yourself around and that which you call problems with you.

What can you undo? What can you unravel? That which you can, do. That which you cannot, give to Me. In your act of giving to Me, you will feel lighter.

It is only pride that keeps you from asking for help from others on earth. Asking for help is a good thing, not a bad thing. When you ask for help in the world, you give another an opportunity to be a helper. You are giving another an opportunity to represent Me. That is a generous act of yours to ennoble another to act on My behalf.

Here's where your thinking can change. You who ask for help also are representing Me as well as those who give help. Yes, I can do anything, but I do so with your help. I have told you that you are My hands. I am not shy to ask you for help. I am God Almighty, and yet I ask you to serve Me. Tenderly, I ask you to serve Me. What I can ask, so can you.

Pride is a very heavy thing to carry around. It is almost like a penance. You do not need to have higher standards than anyone else. Isn't that what pride is? That you are too high to get down? That you must not kneel? That you must somehow ravage through life without ever bending your knee?

When did I ask that of you? When did I ask you to be so holy that you need nothing and no one to help you?

When you are ruled by pride, you have put yourself in debt. You are extracting from yourself. You are practicing usury, for the interest you pay on your pride is too much.

Perhaps you think you have humiliation more than pride, but humiliation is pride gone awry. When someone takes your pride away, you feel humiliated. You can feel humiliated if you want, but humiliation is only the other side of pride. Both are of your own making. Neither pride nor shame belong to you.

Pride is not honor, and lack of pride is not dishonor.

I do not tell you to be sloppy or careless about life, but I don't tell you to be bolted down either. Take pride in your work, but pride is not your work, and it is not your pay. You craft something with attention to it. To pass off faulty work as finished is against truth, but do not think that pride is truth. To do good work is a given. It is natural. Be grateful that you have work to do, and that you do it well.

Watch out for pride because it is easy for pride to have you perform for its sake and then leave you wondering what you were doing. Pride is not enough.

Do not mix up pride and strength. Pride is a form of ego. And ego is always weak, complicated and competitive.

You don't need pride. You need Me. Pride stands in the way. Be My child and do My will, and know that all are equal in their relationship to Me. You cannot change that. All you can change is your relationship to the world, and pride must be swallowed in order to do that.

Angels do not go around being proud. They do not go around being humble. They go around being angels. They are serving Me, and so shall you serve Me.