Three Ways To Improve Your Marriage By Not Being A Prideful Fool.

Before we get to today’s article, I just want to mention that am writing from the perspective of a man that has experienced many of the challenges of which I write…. and those spiritual battles continue daily. The articles are implications of what it means to obey the commandment to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They require some reflection and are particularly for Christians who, as Peter would say, are diligently seeking to confirm their calling and are making every effort to supplement their faith. Said more succinctly, serious Christians. If you know other believers who desire to walk more faithfully with the Lord, please forward an article to them and tell them to sign up for future articles. Thanks so much!

Three Ways To Improve Your Marriage By Not Being A Prideful Fool.

It is well known to all Christians that marriage is one of the most beautiful, maybe the most beautiful thing that the Lord has given us here on this earth. Marriage is not only for us to think about as a union between a man and a woman, but God also uses marriage to describe Christians’ union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is both mysterious and amazing.

Yet, while God paints for us a lovely portrait of what marriage should be in the scriptures, we often mar and blemish the wonder of this picture daily in our marriages. In one of the great ironies of life, we often treat the one we have promised to love above all others as the very least of our loves. Oh, wretched man that I am!

This week, I thought it might be helpful to illustrate some of my past failures in an effort to, by God’s grace, shake some of you to repentance. And by the way, don’t tell yourself that you don’t do the things that I am about to share. You may not do these things exactly as I have, but you have done something similar. I say that based on God’s word from 1 Corinthians 10:12-13: Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. So, let’s consider three (yes, just three for today!) of my sins against my wife-

Example #1: The Wizard Of Mind Changes.

If asked, no one would ever admit to it, but I believe that every marriage starts with the hidden assumption that you will be able to change your spouse in those areas that you deem need to be corrected. The assumption is probably not formed around conscious thoughts and strategizing to change the other person but know this- the actions to impose change quickly rise to the surface shortly after the wedding bells fade away.

This may be one of the most frequent points of argument among married couples and for me and my wife, was the “numero uno” source of friction from the beginning of our journey more than 45 years ago. For me, it was very important to have everything placed into its designated space as soon as the use of it was completed. This could be the newspapers being put into the trash after it was read, or the kids’ toys put away into their respective storage containers. When the house was neat, it somehow made my mind more settled and at ease. My life was organized and being organized is a beautiful thing.

However, my wife took shall we say, a more relaxed approach. She did not see a need to rush behind everything that took place in our home in order to get things put up. My reaction to her point of view did not make her feel better. Often, it seemed to her like I was being quite obsessive on this matter, and she didn’t understand why I would get so agitated. To me, I didn’t see what the problem was, and I probably felt like if I just persisted, she would finally come around. But, in fact, my pushing to get her to see things my way only made things worse. Little verbal arrows shot back and forth often soured the air between us for hours.

It wasn’t until we became Christians that things began to change. For one, it finally registered in my mind that she was simply living out what she had been taught as a child… and so was I. My eyes were trained to love “vac tracks”, and everything perfectly set in place and hers were not. I would see things that were out of place, and literally, she would not. These behaviors were hard wired into us by our parents and to expect a dramatic change was not fair. I didn’t see how unfair it was for our first 25 years of marriage, but now I did. But the epiphany wasn’t just about our upbringing; it was about my sin. Thanks be to God, He allowed me to see that I was not sacrificially loving my wife.

What has happened since that time? Well, God did not change my desire for neatness, but He did give me the grace to relax and overlook things that I had previously become focused on. He enabled me to laugh at my circumstances. When I needed things to be a certain way, I joyfully took care of it myself and did not say a word to my wife. And what did my wife do as a result of this change? She has shown her love for me by being more diligent in this matter. Now we chuckle at our difference rather than become frustrated and our marriage portrait looks a little more like the one Christ wants us to live.

Example #2: The Barrister. The Barrister never loses an argument.

There was a time in my coffee drinking career where I would never completely finish drinking the cup of coffee. The problem was that the last gulp from the bottom of the cup usually had become quite cool and it held some of the coffee dregs. Does anybody enjoy that?

One day, my wife and I were preparing to head out to work and my wife graciously picked up my cup so she could place it in the dishwasher. However, as she picked up the cup, the remaining coffee swished to one side and splashed up onto her blouse. What followed was a heated exchange of words that went something like this: Why don’t you finish your coffee? You think that this is my fault? And back and forth we went arguing over the possible outcomes of not finishing that last bit of coffee in the mug.

It wasn’t until I got to work and began to lead a men’s Bible study that I began to realize what an idiot I was. Rather than showing my wife that I understood that a splash of coffee on her blouse just before we were heading out the door could be quite frustrating, I chose to defend my right to leave that last slurp in the cup. God used that situation to grow my awareness of my natural propensity to place winning an argument above my true calling as a husband.

Example # 3: The Stubborn Bonehead

So, this one happened just a few days ago. Actually, this has happened thousands of times in our last 45 years, but this one was just the latest instance.

With the hope of playing music through a wonderful compact speaker as well as using some other helpful features, we purchased an Apple HomePod for our living room area. I was envisioning times when I could revel in some of my favorite music at an exceedingly loud level! Unfortunately, we failed in our efforts to set the HomePod up and eventually took the unit back to the store.

However, it seemed to me that the Lord was providing an answer to my high decibel needs when I received an email telling me that I could now redeem my reward for the recent change we made in internet service a couple of months ago. The reward presented a choice. We were eligible to receive a $200 Home Depot gift card, or they would send us a soundbar for our television.

I immediately zoned in on the soundbar thinking that it was the replacement for the HomePod. My wife did not agree. She reminded me that the reason we were buying the HomePod was not only so I could go “concert mode” but for other functionality that would enhance all of the technology that we have in our home. I did not concur. I wanted that soundbar. She attempted to further persuade me by reminding me that I would likely have to run a wire behind the wall for power and other wires would be hanging down from the TV; something that I agreed would be ugly.

Intellectually, I knew she was right but for some reason, I was having the hardest time agreeing out loud. It took me another minute before I was finally willing to admit that she was right. In that moment, I realized that God gave me this woman as a blessing and that she is my helper in big and small matters.

A Common Thread

Please note that this article is not another “how to” article that you can find in any secular publication. No, this is a deeply theological one that must be carefully considered by every Christian. Once we are saved by God’s grace, we enter a time where God promises to make us more like His Son (Romans 8:29) and the primary place that God does this is not through our situations at work or elsewhere; it is through marriage.

The common thread running through the examples in this article is the sin of pride. In the first situation (Mind Wizard), pride was what made me think that my way was the best way that a couple could live out the day to day of marriage and family. The second situation (The Barrister) illustrated a man who believes giving ground on any issue is not acceptable because he doesn’t want to be seen as doing something wrong (pride), and in the third instance (The Bonehead), pride would not allow me to change my point of view.

Pride is a killer. God hates it and promises to oppose the prideful person (James 4:6) and He says it leads a person to destruction (Proverbs 16:18). It is the sin that we must be most aware of as it influences our thinking at every point. As John Owen writes, even when we experience some victories over pride in our lives, we must never drop our guard against it because it longs to revive itself. Truly we can say like Paul, that we are wretched as we fail to kill our sin, but we must remember that he followed that with a praise of thanksgiving for deliverance through the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 7:24-25). Additionally, Thomas Watson is correct when he writes that God brings good out of the worst things in life, even our sin.

Finally, remember Ephesians 6:4 and the command to raise your children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. They are watching, listening, and learning from the conversations that you have with your spouse and will likely treat their spouse in the same way one day. That’s something to think about.

Thanks for checking in. See you next time.

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Last modified: September 22, 2023