A HUGE key to a successful and intimate relationship with God or with my husband is my own humility. My sinful and arrogant pride (thinking I know best, I know better than God, I know better than my husband, I have greater wisdom than anyone else) repels my husband, God and everyone else around me!
WHAT HUMILITY IS NOT
Humility is NOT beating myself up, berating myself, putting myself down, feeling sorry for myself, thinking I am worthless or not valuable. That is FALSE humility and it can actually be pride in disguise, or it could be believing Satan’s lies about your identity instead of believing God’s Word about who you are in Christ.
WHAT IS HUMILITY?
Humility is a proper understanding of myself – who I am in relationship to the holy God of the universe, how spiritually poverty-stricken and poor I am on my own, and how I am not above other people.
HOW DOES HUMILITY AFFECT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD?
God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. James 4:6
When I think of myself as sovereign, in control of my life, in control of my marriage, in control of God, in control of my husband – God Himself opposes me! No wonder there is no peace, no joy, no contentment, none of the fruit of the Spirit when I have myself on the throne of my heart in God’s place and make an idol of myself!
HOW DOES HUMILITY AFFECT MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MY HUSBAND?
Without humility, I will not forgive. Without humility, I will insist on my own way and be selfish.
Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. James 3:16
This verse is IMPORTANT! Let’s apply it to my marriage. If I am being selfish in my marriage, and seeking my own desires, my own wants, my own goals, my own satisfaction, my own feelings of being loved and secure (and not focusing on my husband’s needs and desires or God’s Word and His commands and His will for me) – what does God’s Word say I will find in my marriage?
Whew! and YIKES!!!!! “disorder and every evil practice” is NOT what I dream of for my marriage!
Think about the following verses about humility in reference to your marriage today.
- When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. Proverbs 11:2
- The fear of the Lord teaches a man (or woman!) wisdom, and humility comes before honor. Proverbs 15:33
- “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:2
- Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up. James 4:10
- Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:3-11
Wow!!
When I apply humility to my relationship with God – I am blessed, honored, lifted up, exalted AND God is greatly glorified! My godly humility draws God to me! This life is about GOD – it is NOT about me!
When I apply humility to my relationship with my husband, God is free to work through me and in my marriage in ways that He can’t work when I am infested and eaten up with the sin of pride. My godly humility draws my husband to me like a magnet!
Lord,
Help us to each become women of genuine, godly humility. Help us to clearly see our pride by the power of Your Spirit contending with us. Convict us. Help us to repent with godly sorrow and show us the light we need for each new step into the abundant life You have created for us!
Amen!