Week 8 Pride and Humility

 

When I got married I quickly realized how important humility is in a marriage! Humility is the opposite of pride and because pride seems to play at least a little part in every marriage, there needs to be humility. In his book “Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage” Goddard said, “In fact any time we feel irritated with our spouses, that invitation is not an invitation to call our spouses to repentance but an invitation to call ourselves to repent. We are irritated because of our own lack of faith and humility.” I have noticed whenever I am irritated with my spouse if I take time to sit there and think, I can ALWAYS think of something I did that either made the matter worse, or cause the irritation. There have been times when pride has gotten in my way and all I can see are my husband’s mistakes. But early on in my marriage I decided to try and find something to apologize for in every argument. Even if I don’t think I’m in the wrong, or my husband hurt my feelings, every time I’ve made the effort to humble myself and apologize for something I’ve always found something, and the fight ends pretty quick. My husband is really good at doing this as well, not to say pride doesn’t play a role in our marriage, because it does, but it is something we are always actively working on.

In President Bensons talk, “Beware of Pride” he says “God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble.” This quote really stood out to me! One way or another we have to be humbled! I would much rather choose to be humbled than compelled! There is another quote by Goddard that says, “When we humbly turn our minds, our lives, and our purposes over to God, He will refund us. We begin to see with new eyes. We feel with new warmth and goodness. We gladly give our time and energy to bless those around us- especially those with whom we have made covenants.” When we are humble everything in our life gets better, including our marriage!

Marriage is not a walk in the park always and sometimes it can feel like we don’t have the tools to fix it but Goddard said, “Rather than depend on our own limited abilities, we can have the humility to ask God for help. And he is mighty to save- both souls and marriages.” God will help us, especially in our marriages. He knows we are not perfect, he knows that the natural man will sneak in at times, but when we do our best to work on it he will help. One quote from Goddard that really hit home with me was, “Appreciating is more powerful than correcting. Appreciation inflates the tires in which we travel. Criticism is a slow leak in those tires.” This is like anything, when we look for the good we see it, when we look for the good in our partner we see the good.

 “Love is not a happy accident; it is a choice.” – Goddard. As we choose to be humble and overcome our pride our love will blossom and grow.