Pride

I came home exhausted one evening after finishing up the Wednesday night youth activity that I was in charge of at the church. I had left my husband behind with our two little boys and I fully anticipated the carnage that awaited me and would likely keep me on my feet for an extended period of time as I had to clean up the destruction that two little boys roughhousing with their dad would do to our small apartment.

To my surprise, I opened the door to the excited face of my husband and a living room floor that was completely clear of clutter and debris. "The boys and I wanted you to come home to a clean house," my husband explained. I thanked him, grateful that I would be able to sit down and relax after all, but my gratitude was short-lived as I looked around the living room and saw toys and books and shoes and jackets crammed onto the book shelves and into the nooks and crannies of the entertainment center.

Instead of actually putting things where they belonged, they had literally just shoved everything that was on the floor into any available space they could find--crowding out the things that actually belonged on the shelf. To my husband, a clean floor equates with a clean house, where for me, it's not clean until everything is in it's place. I was so annoyed and exasperated as I looked around and realized that not only would I now have to put everything away, but I would have to do even more work because in the process of "cleaning up", they had made a mess of all the bookshelves.

"You call this clean?" I exploded. "Nothing is where it should be!" My husband was completely baffled and I still have a pang of guilt when I imagine his face as I became angry at his efforts and the efforts of my two sweet boys who were just trying to make me happy.

Who was in the wrong here? My husband who had known me long enough by then to know what I termed "clean" but insisted that the house was clean if he couldn't see anything on the floor? Or me, who felt I knew best; me, who felt my needs were of utmost importance and anyone who didn't meet those needs was wrong?

The answer is definitely me. I had allowed pride to come into our evening and our relationship that night (and many days and nights before and since) and ruined a sweet gesture from my well-meaning husband and eager-to-please children.

H. Wallace Goddard in his book "Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage" says, "When we are feeling irked, annoyed, or irritated with our spouse, we have our backs toward heaven. We are guilty of pride."

As humans, it seems that our natural response is to see our experiences and opinions as the "truth" or "fact" and to feel that no one else can see things as clearly as we do. Thus, we take it upon ourselves to educate others to the "right way" or the "only way", to insist that our needs must be met above all else because everyone will be better off that way. Or we feel that we understand others better than they even understand their own selves because of course we do. And it never crosses our minds that the fault might actually lie within our own hearts and actions.

The humorous video below teaches some profound insights about the importance of learning to consider ourselves before being so quick to condemn others.

Goddard says that when we follow our human nature, we take it upon ourselves to tell our partner in "fair, balanced ways" that their behavior irritates us. Then we expect them to change based on our input, and we'll both be happy. I mentioned in one of my previous posts that my husband's habit of never closing the cabinet doors just drove me crazy in the early days of our marriage. I totally responded in this way--letting him know that what he was doing was "wrong" and that it was necessary for him to change his ways so that we could be happy in our marriage.

But according to Goddard, "Anytime we feel irritated with our spouses, the irritation is not an invitation to call our spouses to repentance but an invitation to call ourselves to repent." Ouch! If you feel a little pain upon reading that statement like I did, it likely means that there is work to do.

I have gotten better over the years. I have learned to appreciate the things that my husband or children do to be helpful even if I would have done it "better" or differently. They are making an effort and in doing so they are demonstrating their love for me. How could I possibly react angrily about such an act of service? As with any Christlike quality, this kind of change takes time and patience and diligence. We may fall back into old habits or stumble from time to time. Pride may creep back in. But if we are committed to the Lord and committed to our marriage, we will be more likely to consider our own behavior first and work on what we can truly change: ourselves.


Wallace, H. W. (2009). Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage. Joymap Publishing.