We each got our ballot in the mail last week. I sat and immediately filled in the circle. Next to me, my husband calmly ripped his ballot into shreds and tossed it in the trash. “There’s not a name on that list I can vote for and still sleep well at night.”
I laughed as I relayed this scenario to my friend later. You know you must really love someone to disagree with them, or even cancel out one another’s vote!
I can’t say I’ve always felt this way.
I’ve called myself a Christian my whole life, but hardly acted like one till after I was thirty years old. Even those naive years didn’t really count for much because I was like a baby whose legs weren’t strong enough to hold my own weight. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe anything, but I didn’t realize there was a battle. I didn’t know I was just a redshirt player watching from the sidelines.
Faith without action is useless. Thinking judiciously seemed to me action enough. At one point I remember telling Jesus I already knew plenty, knew basically everything He wanted me to know. I casually suggested he could try to further enlighten me, but I probably already got the point of this salvation business and He could move on to bigger fools, like, say, my husband.
Wow, what a jerk I was! In His mercy, I suffered. By His grace, he humbled me. I sat on the sidelines with a chip on my shoulder for a very long time. The Lord didn’t twist my arm till I screamed uncle, except in a way He did, beating me at my own passive-aggressive game by waiting it out. Silent treatment, I think. He let the enemy whisper lies, let me believe them for a few years. Depression and hopelessness settled in, cemented me in despair. Then He waited for me to lift up my eyes to look for where His help would come from. And Jesus pulled me out of the slimy pit.
I only have sincere admiration for people who want out of slimy pits. People who really, truly, cannot claw their own way out of the mess they’ve made. I thought my religiosity had made me flawless, especially in my marriage. I was the one who set up impossible standards and waited for Joe to fail miserably, then I’d look up to heaven and say, see? Tsk, tsk, what are we going to do with this man?
I hate admitting this–It is the worst possible thing to have done to a person, to elevate myself above them, especially above someone who loves me, who chose me. But for years what assuaged my guilt was this idea that I would always be the better person. Let fools be fools, I thought. He can be an idiot; in the end I’ll be right.
But I was wrong. Pride will make you bitter. Bitterness will fossilize your soul. It’ll harden your heart to stone to where you won’t know the difference between pity and mercy.
Self-righteousness might be the toughest sin to conquer, in my opinion, because it is so tied to identity, and every kind, helpful piece of advice or well-weighed word feels like an attack on one’s person. Perfectionism is the queen of lost causes. She accuses everyone else while ignoring the stains and rips on her gown.
I was a hopeless fool in my marriage. I was miserable. It didn’t even matter if I was technically in the right–I was ruining my own life by sticking my foot out for my husband to trip over it.
I am not the first person to have held out a measuring stick and waited for my spouse to hit the mark. I’m not the only person who has discovered I was incompatible with my partner–a big whoopsie, since we promised each other forever–and wondered how “irreconcilable differences” could be spun in a positive light if I ever ended up divorced.
I’m not the last person who will get married super young and sail right past premarital counseling, winking at the therapist–chill out, we’re in love!–then landing in the no-man’s land of indifference and sleeping in separate rooms.
That’s the good news, or at least it is comforting to some–I’m not the first, and I’m not the last. We blockheads are normal and a common lot, it turns out.
There is something I seem to keep pointing out in these blog posts, and I intend to be very sincere about it. The only thing, the only hope I had was for Jesus to pull me out of the pit I was in. I didn’t even know to ask for help, because I didn’t know I needed it. All I knew is something would have to come to an end. I thought it was my marriage, but I knew enough of what God thinks about marriage to be wary of greener pastures. So this is what I began to pray:
God, change Joe, or change me.
(I was pretty definite He needed to change Joe, but that was parenthetical, of course.)
But change me, if it’s me who needs to be changed, I added.
I was dubious, but my heart was burdened with pain, and I think this is what tipped the odds in my favor–God saw the wretch I was and had mercy on me.
He changed me.
Now, He might have changed Joe, too, but I won’t speak for him. All I know is, He answered my prayer. There was life at the end of the tunnel, and I’m so glad we made it through.
Here are the four things I can confidently pass on to anyone who is facing a crisis of self-righteousness like me:
Take responsibility for yourself.
Trust me, I know how easy and how fair it feels to play the victim. Nothing feels better than finding people who agree with yourself. When we are hurt, we go off looking for the first person who can tell us how right we are and how much the other party has wronged us. They pat our backs and rub our shoulders and tell us they support us. In our hurt, we avoid anyone who might suggest the problem lies with us. We fool ourselves into thinking everything that has happened to us is at fault, when actually the root of our problems lies with who we are. We are sin-prone, self-motivated, and ready to argue. This is the first thing we have to acknowledge if we truly want to get down to business. A good friend–a great friend–will remind us we aren’t perfect, either.
Open your Bible.
I know. It’s basically the only thing I ever say. But if you don’t trust anything else, believe me when I tell you God’s Word has the power to renew your mind. It is living and active and “judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart”–Hebrews 4:12.
James says the Word is like a mirror–a person might look into it and be made completely aware of our own flaws and imperfections. If we continue to look into the Word, we might be found both guilty and forgiven. We might gain the courage to address our own faulty reasoning. With truth looking us in the eye, we recognize our own failings and gently rebuke ourselves. We see the person we struggle with not as an enemy, but as someone God loves. We are empowered to forgive.
Take captive every thought.
When I feel hurt, the quickest things that come to my mind are rapid fire defensive moves, angry words that will cut deep, and hot tears that make my rage feel indulgent and righteous. I’ve learned not to let these things spew forth, but even as I’ve retreated and let these thoughts wash over me, I have realized it’s the thoughts themselves that are poison to me. It took me awhile before I knew of a better way of nipping the reactive stage in the bud. You could call it a mind game, except it is spiritually powerful and applicable to every situation I can think of where words are involved.
Take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5)
We are the mind police, forcing our thoughts to fall on their knees before Christ.
Get alone, move your body, and pray.
Truth be told, there isn’t a difference between psychology and spirituality. The mind controls the man. We are spirit people living in flesh bodies, struggling with our own thoughts and feelings. The truest, oldest way to align ourselves is still to get out and get moving. Put the body to work and kill the pity party. Stop offering your opinion. Stop defending yourself. Distance yourself physically and emotionally (it’s hard to cry or fight while you’re jogging) until you have created space enough to think and talk to Jesus. Cast your cares on Him for He cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)
Now let me tell you about my favorite person on this planet.
He is not perfect. One of his most annoying traits is how he throws things away like it’s his business, even things I think are useful, like an empty plastic dish detergent bucket specifically used to hold plastic bags in the pantry. He cannot, for the life of him, make himself care about a dirty toilet, or missing trim, or milk-splattered kitchen walls. He scoffs at honey-do lists. He doesn’t think kids need to sleep in pajamas and he doesn’t care if kids wear socks outside in the grass. He loves TV and laying on the couch and he dreams mostly about hunting and football. He doesn’t take an interest in my hobbies and he rarely reads anything I’ve written.
But he has never once told me I look anything but beautiful. He’s never once missed a day of work unless he was sick, and he’s never once complained about his job or pointed out that I haven’t carried any financial responsibility for over a decade. Never once has he brought up the state of our unkempt home, the lack of folded, clean laundry, our kid-trashed family car. He doesn’t even complain about warmed up hotdogs for supper. He encourages me to relax, he encourages me to get away and take a break when I need one.
I gave him a short leash and he gave me a long one, and for years I thought I had the upper hand. I was wrong. Love doesn’t keep score. I try not to anymore, either.
