Pride blocks spiritual discernment by making you defend bad judgments instead of correcting them. When you misjudge someone, pride pushes you to justify the mistake rather than admit it. True discernment comes from the Holy Spirit, not from human power or self-reliance.
Many Christians pride themselves in having discernment. It's almost part of their personality, at least in the way they consider it. But Zechariah 4:6 says, it's not by power nor by might, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. And pride is a stumbling block to discernment because it doesn't allow for course correction. In fact, pride, when it recognizes that it didn't discern something properly, will actually go looking for reasons to believe itself in the first place, despite the evidence that's presented. So for example, let's say you meet someone and at first you're not liking them. There's something in your mind off about them. And then later you find that you were just overthinking it, or maybe you were in a bad mood, or you caught them on a bad day. But instead of admitting that you got it wrong, you just look for more reasons to tell yourself, no, I got it right in the first place. And so what happens is you begin to double down on that wrong thinking. And so this is why pride is a major stumbling block, because it's self-reliance as opposed to reliance on the Spirit. Bragging about having good discernment, bragging about always getting it right, bragging about just being able to see things in people when no one else can, that's a revelation of pride. Those are signs that maybe there is some hidden pride in your heart, and it's important that you discern that pride in yourself before you begin to discern things about the world around you and the people around you. And so we must rely on the Spirit. Trust not in your ability to hear the Holy Spirit, trust in the Holy Spirit's ability to speak to you.
