Breaking The Back
of Selfishness
August 15, 2005
In case you missed last week’s email, I wrote
about the “I Don’t Want To Feeling.” That’s the selfish feeling
husbands and wives get when they’re asked to do something
unpleasant. If it’s not addressed and overcome it will grow into
a monster that will suck all life and love from a marriage.
Defeating this beast begins with recognizing the severity of the
problem. Once we see the seriousness of our selfishness, how it
displeases God and hurts our spouse, we’ll understand how
desperately we need forgiveness. I think we’ll feel like the
prophet Isaiah who upon seeing the holiness of God said, “”Woe
to me!" I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips,
and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen
the King, the LORD Almighty’” (Isaiah 6:5).
Fortunately, God never withholds forgiveness from
a broken person who turns to him. In the case of Isaiah, an
angel flew to him with a live coal in his hand. In Isaiah 6:7 we
read, “With it he touched my mouth and said, "’See, this has
touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned
for’.”
God’s forgiveness cuts the cords of shame that
hang like a weight to our soul. It frees us to ask our spouse to
forgive our selfishness. On several occasions my selfishness has
driven me to treat Cindy with impatience when we were due to
leave for an engagement. Later, I could have said to her,
“Please forgive my impatience.” I had been impatient. But it
would have been better to have said, “Please forgive my
selfishness. I put my desire to leave on time above your
feelings. I’m sorry.”
Such words often stick to the roof of the mouth.
Our selfishness and pride demand that we defend ourselves . . .
prove we were right . . . wait for an apology from our spouse.
The “I don’t want to feeling” begs us to stand our ground.
That’s why, after taking the first two steps we must take the
third. Next week, we’ll examine the final step we must take in
overcoming the “I don’t want to feeling.”
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