The last 24 hours have been particularly eye-opening for me as I read about pride and humility, and how these things affect marriage. Nearly all the words seemed to jump off the page and screamed and me that this was an area that I needed to work on, and though I was happy to know of a way that I could improve and change, it was very saddening to me to know just how much it has been affecting me from day to day.
This week we read a chapter of each book (Chapter 4 in Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage by Goddard, titled “Humility and Repentance” and Chapter 6 inThe Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman, titled “Let Your Partner Influence You”) and a talk by Elder Ezra Taft Benson titled “Beware of Pride” which can be found here. Everything I talk about will be drawn from these sources.
What was most eye-opening to me is that the simple things like irritation, contention, and even faultfinding are all faucets of pride, and with pride being the root of all evil, it can fester and grow over time and ultimately ruin a marriage. Over the last few weeks I have spent a great amount of time irritated with my husband over things he does and doesn’t do. Though I haven’t shared these thoughts with him, I realize that my faultfinding and irritations are just building up within myself, and it is affecting how I view my husband - the one man I know I love more than anything in the world. As I have let these feelings grow inside of me, I have found it hard to hold onto those feelings of love, so it makes sense to me that pride can ruin a marriage.
The things that we read also offered solutions to this problem - and the only solution for pride is humility. We must actively choose to find the core of the problem, or to just let the irritations flow away. Sometimes the issue does need to be discussed, so the partners can find common ground and work through the issue, to truly understand it and take action to solve it. Most importantly though you must go into this always looking at yourself as the problem. It is easy to find pride in someone else, but it can take longer to recognize it in yourself, though it is most likely present.
So for this week, I know that I will truly be applying the lesson to my heart. I want to do better at recognizing pride so I can get rid of it at soon as it starts with repentance, and hopefully get rid of it all together. I’m going to get on my knees and plead for forgiveness, and even say sorry to my husband for letting my pride get in the way of my love for him. And I encourage everyone else to take a deep look at their mind and heart and see if they can make any changes in their life too - because truly, pride is in everyone, so we could all benefit from taking a few steps to invite humility into our lives, and especially into our marriage.
This week we read a chapter of each book (Chapter 4 in Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage by Goddard, titled “Humility and Repentance” and Chapter 6 inThe Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman, titled “Let Your Partner Influence You”) and a talk by Elder Ezra Taft Benson titled “Beware of Pride” which can be found here. Everything I talk about will be drawn from these sources.
What was most eye-opening to me is that the simple things like irritation, contention, and even faultfinding are all faucets of pride, and with pride being the root of all evil, it can fester and grow over time and ultimately ruin a marriage. Over the last few weeks I have spent a great amount of time irritated with my husband over things he does and doesn’t do. Though I haven’t shared these thoughts with him, I realize that my faultfinding and irritations are just building up within myself, and it is affecting how I view my husband - the one man I know I love more than anything in the world. As I have let these feelings grow inside of me, I have found it hard to hold onto those feelings of love, so it makes sense to me that pride can ruin a marriage.
The things that we read also offered solutions to this problem - and the only solution for pride is humility. We must actively choose to find the core of the problem, or to just let the irritations flow away. Sometimes the issue does need to be discussed, so the partners can find common ground and work through the issue, to truly understand it and take action to solve it. Most importantly though you must go into this always looking at yourself as the problem. It is easy to find pride in someone else, but it can take longer to recognize it in yourself, though it is most likely present.
So for this week, I know that I will truly be applying the lesson to my heart. I want to do better at recognizing pride so I can get rid of it at soon as it starts with repentance, and hopefully get rid of it all together. I’m going to get on my knees and plead for forgiveness, and even say sorry to my husband for letting my pride get in the way of my love for him. And I encourage everyone else to take a deep look at their mind and heart and see if they can make any changes in their life too - because truly, pride is in everyone, so we could all benefit from taking a few steps to invite humility into our lives, and especially into our marriage.
Below is what I posted on Facebook about what I learned this week in school. Again, the link for Benson's talk can be found here.
This week I was required to read this talk, among other things, in relation to my marriage class. This talk in particular, "Beware of Pride" by Ezra Taft Benson, has been especially eye-opening. I had always heard that pride was the root of all evil, but reading his words made this so much more real and made it apparent that I have a lot of work to do with pride, especially as it relates to my marriage.
The quotes below are only a small snippet of the wisdom within this talk. I encourage everyone to read it.
"Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. (See 2 Ne. 9:42.) There is, however, a far more common ailment among us - and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous."
...
"Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. “How everything affects me” is the center of all that matters - self-conceit, self-pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking."
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"Another face of pride is contention. Arguments, fights, unrighteous dominion, generation gaps, divorces, spouse abuse, riots, and disturbances all fall into this category of pride.
"Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that “only by pride cometh contention.” (Prov. 13:10; see also Prov. 28:25.)"
This week I was required to read this talk, among other things, in relation to my marriage class. This talk in particular, "Beware of Pride" by Ezra Taft Benson, has been especially eye-opening. I had always heard that pride was the root of all evil, but reading his words made this so much more real and made it apparent that I have a lot of work to do with pride, especially as it relates to my marriage.
The quotes below are only a small snippet of the wisdom within this talk. I encourage everyone to read it.
"Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves. Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and the learned, looking down at the rest of us. (See 2 Ne. 9:42.) There is, however, a far more common ailment among us - and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous."
...
"Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. “How everything affects me” is the center of all that matters - self-conceit, self-pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking."
...
"Another face of pride is contention. Arguments, fights, unrighteous dominion, generation gaps, divorces, spouse abuse, riots, and disturbances all fall into this category of pride.
"Contention in our families drives the Spirit of the Lord away. It also drives many of our family members away. Contention ranges from a hostile spoken word to worldwide conflicts. The scriptures tell us that “only by pride cometh contention.” (Prov. 13:10; see also Prov. 28:25.)"