Do you and your spouse have teachable and humble hearts in marriage?
We tried to keep a few words off limits while raising our four sons. Besides the obvious four-letter words, we discouraged the use of words like “idiot,” “jerk,” and “hate.” But the word “stupid” seemed to be the worst and the one that tempted us the most. And no surprise, with four sons, the reasons to call each stupid always remained high!
Quit acting so “stupid.”
You’re so “stupid”
Wait—you like that team? You’re “stupid!”
You got that grade? It’s because you’re “stupid!”
But, in Proverbs 12:1, we see the author of Proverbs 12 use this very word to describe the person who hates correction (double whammy - both hate and stupid!). The writer says, “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid.”
Talk about something that applies to every human being. We all mess up. Each of us gets plenty of opportunities to learn from our errors. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 6:23). And we’d be wise to love discipline and correction for our ways. It demonstrates a humility we all require.
But the one who hate correction is stupid. They lack humility and will miss out on opportunities to grow and mature. If you make mistakes you’re in good company. If you sin, you are just like every human being who’s ever walked the face of the planet (besides Jesus). Will you be someone “stupid” who hates discipline and correction, or will you be one who loves discipline?
How Does This Apply to Marriage?
The following is an excerpt from my new book, The Ready or Knot Prayer Guide. I hope it encourages you to be wise and avoid stupidity.
My wife and I have four sons who are, at this moment of writing, ages eighteen, eighteen, fifteen, and thirteen. As you can imagine, there are plenty of opportunities for our family members to apologize to one another and seek and grant forgiveness. At times our sons argue and yell at each other. In other moments they tear each other down. In marriage, Kristen and I have had arguments and disagreements. We’ve even made each other cry on occasion.
Every time an argument breaks out in our family, we have an opportunity to learn and grow. We can either move forward with pride, thinking we’re right and they’re wrong, or we can choose to be teachable and learn from our sins and mistakes. Life constantly provides us with opportunities to learn. We’d all benefit from teachable spirits.
During your early years of marriage, you and your significant other will continue to get to know each other. You’ll likely make assumptions based on your family of origin, and when your spouse doesn’t do what you thought they’d do, you’ll have the opportunity to choose how you respond. You’re going to want to be very teachable so that you can grow in your marriage and so that you and your spouse can better understand how to love and serve each other.
A few years ago, I went to a marriage conference with about seventy-five other marriage ministry leaders. One of the speakers was Dr. Gary Chapman. If you’ve ever heard of The 5 Love Languages, then you’ve heard of Dr. Chapman. He’s sold millions and millions of books. He’s forgotten more about marriage than the rest of the world could ever know about it! Yet, at a marriage conference led and taught by much younger men and women, Dr. Chapman sat through every session and took notes. It was one of the greatest pictures of being teachable that I’ve ever seen.
What if we went into marriage with the same mentality? Our marriages would be much stronger if we stopped to listen, learn, and take notes. I pray you and your future spouse will be teachable in marriage.
Pray Together
Lord, we pray You’d help us be teachable. Help us be a husband and wife who are willing to learn. We pray that we’d never grow weary of loving knowledge and understanding. Help us not to hate correction, as the writer of Proverbs 12 said. We pray we’d be humble, correctable, and teachable in our marriage.
Photo courtesy of Gratisography