Wives Who Win: How to Win in Your Marriage God's WaySample

Winning in Marriage Through Humility

Pride chooses the attitude and actions of the world and seeks to be right all the time. It seeks its own way and rejoices when others are proven wrong. Pride also contributes to the unfair mistreatment and poor stewardship in marriage. It creates blind spots, preventing couples from seeing the error of their ways and contributing attitude and behavior toward the unending calamity in marriage. Pride is the opposite of humility, and it is at the root of many unresolved marital conflicts.

The Apostle Peter instructs you to clothe yourself with humility toward each other (1 Peter 5:5). Doing this is just like putting on your natural clothes daily—you are doing so to cover what is most precious to you, your body. When you clothe yourself with humility as a couple, you are protecting the human relationship that is closest to you, your marriage. You protect it against jealousy, strife, envy, bitterness, hatred, unforgiveness, and all negative and derogatory thoughts and feelings toward your spouse and marriage. Clothing yourself with humility provides the space for you to serve one another through faith and love. Offering and receiving forgiveness becomes easier when humility is actively working in your marriage. It becomes an honor rather than burden to look out for the interest of your spouse above your own when humility is at work.

The world wants you to think that humility is being feeble minded. It wants you to hold onto grudges toward one another for days, weeks, months, or even years. Humility has been misunderstood to mean you are worthless, hopeless, or helpless. However, when you look at humility from a biblical definition and how it was demonstrated in the lives of Paul, David, Joseph and even Jesus, we see that humility means to be  humble, meek, and lowly in spirit. These individuals were made low so that others could experience elevation. They denied themselves so that others could experience freedom in Christ. 

When humility is exercised consistently and constantly in your marriage, Satan will never win. He will not be able to play you against your spouse or use moments of discouragement and disappointment as an entry point to stir up disharmony. Humility creates a stronger bond between you and your spouse, providing the support needed for your marriage to thrive. 

Reflection: In what ways can you demonstrate humility in your marriage toward your spouse?