10/21/2024
I had a very interesting epiphany this morning. In Christian circles, the word for this is a revelation. My wife and I are still on the journey to heal our marriage. We have been through a divorce and separation and are now in the re-marriage phase and rebuilding.
The epiphany is that God had it right all along. Go figure, right? My wife and I fight because I want to be correct, and so does she. It's human nature to need to be right. This is why there is so much anger out there. We see it in the news all the time. Road rage is a good example. Joe needed to be right, and Jim needed to be right. Both thought they were in the right, so when Joe was driving in a way Jim didn’t like, the result was road rage.
In a marriage, we have the same problem. We want and need to be correct, so we argue to defend our positions. I argue with my wife because I think I'm right, but she is wrong. She argues with me because she is defending her position that she is right and I'm wrong.
My love for my wife must be stronger than my need to be right. In other words, I have to die, to me. I don't have to be right if I love my wife more than I love myself. If I can get to this place, then when we get in a fight, because my love for my wife is stronger, I don’t want to hurt her, so that desire not to hurt my wife is stronger than my need to be right.
My wife has to come to the same conclusion. She has to love me more than her love for herself and her need to be right. If we both can accomplish this, our fights will be much shorter and less intense because we don't want to hurt each other. This is what God meant and the reason behind his saying that we must die to ourselves and love our neighbor more than we love ourselves.
The problem is how to achieve this. Many would say to pray and ask God. This is, of course, correct, but as the Book of James says, faith without works is useless. We must go to God and ask for help, but there also must be a practical application. This application is where I'm struggling.
I'm looking for a Pastor or a knowledgeable Christian who can help with this idea. This is not a new idea, but as far as I know, there is nothing practical out there for how to do this. If you can help or direct me to a Pastor or layperson who will advise with more than just prayer, please let me know so we can brainstorm this.
Please don't just quote scripture. Scripture is great, but there must be a practical way to apply it; otherwise, it's just words.
