Ashleigh Brilliant, that odd vestige of the seventies who scribbled his offbeat humor on hippie postcards, once penned: "All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance." People chortled at that observation thirty years ago. People absolutely live by it today.

Is egoism one of the greatest sins of Christian leaders, especially of those who are effective, successful, respected Christian leaders: Perhaps even of you?

Our egos are a strange entity of proportion and moderation. Psychologically, a person with no ego would be a basket case without self-control or a concept of personal identity. Practically, a person with a deficient ego flounders in self-doubt, failure, and lack of confidence. On the other hand, we find a person who has an inflated sense of self-worth an insufferable blowhard, an egomaniac, a self-aggrandizing mass of arrogance. Every life needs some kind of balance between single-minded self-centeredness and excessive self-deprecation.

The famous rabbi ...