Say NO to Pride

Growing up I never felt like I had a good understanding of what pride was. As I get older and strive to strengthen my marriage, I am learning that it is all around us and must be fought in order to truly be happy. 

Examples of pride:

-Irritation or annoyance with spouse

-Selfishness, ignoring spouse’s needs

-Contention, arguments, fights

-Thinking we know all, thinking we are better than others

-Comparing, score keeping

-Intentionally creating jealousy

-Faultfinding in spouse and others

I have a lot of work to do! Pride can destroy marriages and invites Satan to do his thing. We must evaluate ourselves and strive to improve. Even if one person in a relationship is increasing their humility it makes all the difference.

A few ways that we can become more humble are to: strive to understand our companions, realize that we don’t know all and that our spouses have feelings and thoughts of their own, let our spouses speak for themselves, put their needs over our own, pray for help and forgiveness to overcome our shortcomings, forgive others, receive chastisement, love God, and selflessly serve others.

H. Wallace Goddard said, “…if we sacrifice our own wants and needs, in favor of our spouse’s…we will find true joy and happiness.” THAT is exactly what I want in this life. I want true joy and happiness. We are told pretty clearly that if that’s what we want we must sacrifice for those we love. Getting rid of our pride is one of the greatest ways that we can become more like Jesus Christ. I believe that no matter how hard it may be, it will be so worth it in the end!