Laying Down Pride in Marriage

On this episode of the Authentic Marriage Podcast, Chris and Shawn have an honest and powerful conversation about pride and its impact on marriage, specifically from a husband’s perspective. While men are called to lead their families, biblical leadership is rooted in humility, not control or self-reliance.

The discussion highlights how pride can often be rewarded in the workplace, yet damaging at home. As they share, pride may make you strong in the boardroom, but it can leave you disconnected in your marriage. True leadership within the home requires laying down that pride in order to love, serve, and lead well.

Chris and Shawn reflect on the story of Naaman in Scripture, showing how pride can blind us and cause us to resist God’s way when it does not align with our expectations. Often, pride shows up when we believe things should be done a certain way, and when they are not, we assume the other person is wrong. This mindset can quickly erode the sense of partnership that marriage is meant to reflect.

The conversation also speaks to how many men are raised to be strong providers and protectors, but without surrender, those strengths can turn into pride. To become better husbands and godly leaders, men must be willing to humble themselves before the Lord, laying down their need to be right in order to lead with love and unity.

This episode encourages men to embrace humility as a strength and to pursue a marriage that reflects Christ through servant leadership.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Welcome back to Love for Lifetime's Authentic Married Podcast. Today you're just getting Sean and I. So Chris and I, I'm Chris, this is Sean, and it's just going to be the two of us today. And as the husbands and guys, we want to talk a little bit about this concept about uh pride. Uh and first, I think we want to start out saying, look, if you think about uh where we are today, you know, as men and husbands, what we're taught, and this this goes back hundreds, thousands of years, right? Men are taught to be, uh they're taught to be the providers, they're taught to be hunters, or or they're they're workers, they're out there, they're the protectors of their family. So all these concepts uh leads them to say, I need to be strong. I need to be strong for my family. Uh but the risk you have with that is that when you start to believe too much in your strength and depend too much on your strength, you have this issue of pride.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah. Pride becomes your identity.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Pride becomes your identity. So we want to talk a little bit about pride, but before we go any deeper, we want to set this up with uh uh a story from the Bible out of 2 Kings, 2 Kings 5 about Naaman. Now, Naaman was a powerful Syrian general, uh, but he had leprosy, which was acceptable in that army because they they valued his strength and his leadership.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, and he was known as a fierce warrior, and uh he had strength.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

He had strength, so he was he was value was in that. So uh the backstory of this is so he's he's general in the Syrian army, um he has leprosy. They've captured um a young girl from Israel, and she's been put in as a servant in his wife's house. And the little girl tells him, hey, there is a prophet in Israel that could heal Naaman. Uh and he finds out, and he goes with his armies and gold and silver to see the prophet Elijah in Israel. So I'm going to pick up here and read uh 2 Kings 5. I'm gonna read 9 through 12, just a little bit. And it says, So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elijah's house. And Elijah sent a messenger to him saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean. But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, Behold, I thought he would surely come out to me, stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure my leprosy. Are not Abanah and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in rage. So there he went looking for a cure. He was told the cure, but it didn't, he wasn't the way he expected it to be.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

He wasn't treated with the respect he demands. Elisha didn't even come out to the door, he sent a servant or a messenger. So this is a general who's used to being served, uh, used to being the center of attention, used to having everybody bow to whatever he says, and the prophet from Israel wouldn't even come out to greet him.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

And he took offense. He took a great offense to that.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. Uh and and made excuses, and and and uh these rivers are better. Why would I bathe in this this dirty river? Uh it just didn't meet his expectations. Yeah. And I think that's where pride comes from a lot of times. We expect things to be done a certain way, and if they're not, that person's wrong. Um pride's about being right. Um and I think in his mind he was right. Those rivers were probably cleaner.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah. And that wasn't the point though, right? The point was he had to be obedient and listen.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, he had to he had to change. Um what the the cool part of this story, too, as it as it goes on, um his servant said, you know, the prophet Elisha gave you the cure. Why not go do what he told you to do? Do you want to live with this leprosy or do you want to be clean? Why not go do what he told you to do? And so then he came back and uh and then he did it. And and he dipped seven times in the river. And he came up on the seventh time, which means he went one through six, and then finally on the seventh, um, he was completely clean. And so he had to humble himself. He he turned around and he humbled himself. And I think we as men struggle with that. And we were talking about it earlier, is that men have a propensity for pride because of the way we're raised. And you know, a lot of men don't cry, don't show weakness, don't don't show fear, don't do any of those things. Ultimately, don't be vulnerable. Um, and it's just really driven home into us. Um, I remember growing up, and it was like, you know, be honorable, don't start a fight. But if somebody hits you, you hit them back twice as hard, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

And so you don't start it, but you're gonna finish it.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Right. You know, and so we we take on that strength. And I I've I've battled with pride in my life, um, a toughness, a strength, and I I wore that as an identity. And um it makes relationships hard. And, you know, obviously we're doing a marriage podcast, and so we want to relate that back to what does this pride do in your relationship with your spouse?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah, and I think uh it's funny. I I look at this story about Naaman, and you know, he's he's upset because they don't greet him at the door and there's not fanfare and reception and all these things. And I can I have to, I'm I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I can think back probably 15 years ago. I can remember coming home from work one day, coming into the house, and I'm expecting that the the kids are gonna come greet me and pay me respect, and Brooke's gonna come see me. And I remember coming in the door and and this chaos at the house, and I'm trying to get their attention because I had I had some news to tell them or something, and and they just didn't care that I was home. And then I had something to tell them, something I wanted to talk about, because they were busy with the things they were doing. And I remember I actually said out loud something along the lines of, My goodness, they'd never treat me this way at work. And Brooke heard it. She didn't hear whatever else I was saying, but she heard that and she said, Oh, aren't you high and mighty tonight?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

That leads us back to the joke that you told us.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

That leads us back to this thing you found earlier. This this quote, uh, woof, this is exactly the same thing. It says, Pride makes you powerful in the boardroom, but lonely in the bedroom.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

So I was lonely in the bedroom that night, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

And we'll take this back to the sex talk here uh eventually. But we're gonna we're gonna stick with pride. And then I think um we were talking about why men get that, and we're we're in a performance culture. We have to provide, we have to perform. Um in sports, if you play sports, we have to dominate. And we take this into our relationships, and that's where we get into a lot of trouble because we we get to we justify our defensiveness when like say Lauren would come up to me and say, Hey, I really want to talk to you about this. And she would, I would feel attacked, I would feel disrespected, and I would feel like she didn't approach me the right way. So ultimately you get defensive, and what what could have just been a comment or a a discussion becomes a full-blown argument, not because of her, but because of my defensiveness, my pride, my desire to be right. Um, you know, and a lot of guys have really, you know, they'll use their intellect as a justification for their pride as well. I remember, and this isn't to say I'm smart, I used to be smart before I got married. And then uh, but I remember I could I could take a fight or take a discussion and I could flip it around to where the person that came to me with a problem would leave feeling like they were in the wrong all the time.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, and think about how wrong that is in marriage, just like you talked about the same thing. Sometimes if you want to you say, Oh, I want to be right or I want to get the last word, and you totally lose sight of the fact that, hey, look, to become one, and we're a partnership. In marriage, we're a partnership. And when you get into that place of being prideful and wanting to be right, wanting to have your way, you totally lose that that concept of partnership because you're so focused on yourself and your own needs and being right.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah. There was a bib Bible verse that stood out to me on James 4, 6, and it said, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. It didn't say he ignored the pride, it didn't say he tolerated the pride, it said he opposed. And if you look at that word opposed, God is against. And when you start to look at that and you look at how Jesus was when he came, your favorite verse is in Philippians, and it talks about Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. And he humbled himself before um before the people. He came as as a as God in human form and humbled himself to the point of death. And I think when we look at this pride, we start to say, if we want to be become more like Jesus, if that's what our goal is, if we're walking that walk. Jesus was really humble. Um He put others before Himself, He healed, He He spoke truth, He He did it in love, and He cared truly and deeply about people. We have to be able to do that for our spouse, the one person that we marry to spend the rest of our life with. And I think if you if you realize it in your marriage, if you're if you're being prideful, you're always winning the fights, you're hurting your marriage, and God opposes that. And and so for me, that hit me pretty hard is I have to really look at myself and say, How can I be humble? How can I understand what she's saying without feeling attacked? And in a marriage, it becomes kind of a give and take. She had to learn to come to me and say, Hey, can I talk to you about this now? And if I was not in that mood, and I would say no, not right now, because I would have to prepare, prepare my mind. But that's very humbling to do that, to know, okay, she's coming to me with something hard. I'm really not in a good mood right now. Let me take a moment to reflect, even get in the word, even pray before I come back so that I can get rid of all of my defensiveness and all of the offense that you can take to somebody coming at you.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think I think the other thing that's interesting in that in in pride is that similar to the story here in 2 Kings 5, is that sometimes we don't accept help because we're too prideful, right? Oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna figure this out on my own, I'm gonna fix this on my own, and we'll spend hours or days and even weeks trying to trying to fix something. When the reality is we just need to humble ourselves and go ask for help. Uh in our marriage, it's hey, we need to go, we need to go ask our helper, we need to go ask our wives and say, hey, um, I'm struggling with this, maybe I'm struggling with an addiction, maybe I'm struggling with a with a with a sin I can't break free of. Well, I know that she wants to help me. Maybe I'm too prideful to expose her to her, but I know that she would want to help me. And I have to break that down and get past uh my own pride, my own sinful nature to seek that help.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

And sometimes it's hard in that moment, right? In that moment, you don't want to hear it. You don't sometimes you don't want to hear the correction, but it's we have to learn that they're not out to harm us. We're one together. They want to protect the marriage itself. We had an example a couple weeks ago where I was really frustrated just with everything, the kids and work and everything. And I was just wearing it. And when I wear it, everybody around me feels it.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

And they know they can see it. At least in my house, they could see it when I wear it.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Well, they can it's all over you, right? Yep. And Lauren told me, What are you listening to all day? And I said, I'm listening to talk radio, right? You know, I'm listening to the news, I'm listening to that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

I gotta stay up on current events, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And I would justify it. Well, I need to hear this, I need to know what's going on, I need to protect us, I need to do these things. And she would say, Can you just maybe just get into the word or listen to a podcast or listen to somebody that um will put your heart in the right place? And I was like, You don't know what you're talking about, right? And and it took me a second, and I realized she's really trying to protect me and protect our family. And so I started to do it, and I had to humble myself to do it because it be it has become a habit. Every day I look forward to whatever news source or whatever it is. So I started to listen to podcasts and I started to listen to worship music and I started to do that, and in two weeks I haven't listened to the news at all. And our home life is completely better. Like I'm not as frustrated with the kids, and you know, they're two and five, so they're frustrating in general, right? At this age, but they don't think like you're two and five. Right, right. So, you know, I thank her for having the ability and the strength to tell me I see something wrong in you, I see something hurting you. And I and and ultimately I had to humble myself and say, you know what, you're right. I feel it, I know it. I need to do something about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, I think uh we could probably talk a lot more about this topic of pride, and I'm sure Brooke and Lauren maybe like to join us sometime, but I think we'll wrap it up for today. But I think that story is a really good one because like Naaman in in 2 Kings 5, he almost missed his healing, he almost missed his blessing because of his pride. And and that story I think you just told is an example of boy, you know, because of your pride, you almost missed the that advice from Laura, and that made your home more peaceful. Yeah. And I think we're, as you said earlier, we're highly at risk as husbands, as men of being too prideful in our marriages. And it's something we've got to recognize uh that hey, the marriage is a partnership. We need to be humble in that relationship. Uh, we don't need to be prideful in it. Yeah. Uh so I think uh with that, maybe you want to press us out.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah. God, thank you so much for just the wisdom that you have just been imparting with us. I know that we have both probably dealt with pride. I know I personally have. I know it's something that I struggle with, but the more and more I open my heart to you, the more and more I know that you want to change it. It is not your will for us to be prideful. It is not your will for us to walk in this um frustration and this life of struggle. You want us to be peaceful and joyful. And removing pride and becoming humble is one of the best ways we can do that. So thank you for your word. Thank you for opposing pride because that caused me, in essence, to say, I don't ever want to be something that God is opposed to. So, Lord, thank you for this ministry. Thank you for the marriages, thank you for the people who are listening to this. Lord, I just pray that something that was said today would open somebody's heart and their eyes to want to get into your word and see what you say about this. And Lord, that ultimately marriages are restored, your glory is shown, and that our marriages, anybody's marriage, can reflect the love you have for people in the way that we love and cherish our spouse. We thank you for all that you do in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

Amen. Amen. Well, thanks for again for listening. I'm Chris Hewn. We're here with the Authentic Marriage Podcast for Love for a Lifetime, and uh we look forward to seeing you next time.