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When Your Husband’s a Pharisee

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My New Vow

When Jesus teaches us how to love each other, he tells us to focus first on the sin in our own lives before moving too quick to help others with theirs. He says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5). Even if we think our spouse is 99% wrong, and we are only 1% wrong, we first should turn our energy and effort on our own sin — the sin closest to us, the sin we are responsibile for.

If my wife and I both had a speck of dust in our eyes, the speck in my eye would look larger because it is closer to me. Ignoring our own sin to focus someone else’s is like having a 2×4 stuck under your eyelid. We compare our sin to others, thinking they are wicked, while we aren’t so bad.

I realized how ridiculous I was to poke at the speck in my wife’s eye with a plank sticking out of my face. I said to her, “All I’ve done is criticize and rebuke you. So, for the next year, I promise not to bring up any of your sins or faults. If you ask me a question, I will answer it honestly. But I will only initiate talking about my sin. For now, any sin I see in you, I will just pray about.”

How God Humbles Husbands

I’ve made many promises in my life, and broken too many of them. But God helped me keep this one. My wife and I would get into an argument. As soon as I caught myself, I would shut my mouth and listen. I didn’t attack her. I would focus on receiving and embracing her correction.

It was hard. Often I was boiling inside. But when the conversation ended, I would go pray. I would start out complaining, telling God how he needed to change her. But eventually I would confess my own sin to him. Over time, I started to soften, break, and be humbled by how much God was constantly forgiving me. The radical mercy of Christ, flowing from the cross to me, began to change me as a husband.

It became easier to listen to my wife, easier to be compassionate, easier to admit my own faults. After weeks of this pattern, she rebuked me one day. I quickly admitted she was right. She stopped mid-sentence and said, “You know, this isn’t all your fault. I’ve sinned, too.”

Race to Repent

It took more than a year, with counseling, to work through our baggage. But the tenor of our marriage changed over those months. For the first year or so, we had been in a race to defend ourselves and attack each other. We wanted to score the most points by landing the best rebuke. We wanted to win the argument.

Now, for the last fifteen years or so, we typically race to see who can repent first. Rather than rushing to the other person’s specks, we try to focus on our planks first. In the process, we have become more humble, because we are more conscious of our own brokenness and need for grace. We have become more gracious, because we are so much more aware of how much Christ is constantly forgiving us. We have become much more gentle, because we realize how tender it can be to get sin out of our own eye.

God saved my marriage not by fixing my wife’s problems, but by helping me see my own and showing me mercy where I am wrong. After years of apologizing, extending grace, and learning, we now are far more likely to repent and forgive than to fight and scratch.

Olan Stubbs
Olan Stubbs
Olan Stubbs has been married for over 20 years to Lynna. They have four kids. He works with Campus Outreach and is a Pastor at Briarwood PCA in Birmingham AL. He blogs at campusoutreachbirmingham.org and has a podcast that can be found at gospeltalk.podbean.com/.

Navigating the Pain of When Family Doesn’t Act Like Family: Strategies for Coping and Healing

Discover insights and coping strategies for navigating emotional turmoil when family doesn't act like family. Explore how to set boundaries, prioritize self-care, and find healing amidst complex family relationships.

Exposing the Top 10 Weirdest Episodes of ‘My Strange Addiction’

Explore the weirdest episodes of 'My Strange Addiction' that offer profound insights into human behavior and the complexities of addiction, from eating non-food items to forming unique attachments.