Distractions in Your Marriage: Selfishness

This is the blog this month that most likely touches all of us. It’s the number one root problem with humanity and with marriage. It interferes with me being a good husband, father, grandfather, friend, and everything else. It started a long time ago in the Garden of Eden when man and woman chose themselves over God. It has continued throughout history right down to today. As far as I can tell, only one person that ever lived avoided this trap, and that was Jesus.  

The issue is selfishness.  

Honestly, I think this is something that I will have to work on the rest of my life. I think I am a lot less selfish than I used to be but it can still rear its ugly head. What bothers me the most is that it gets the priorities I strive for out of order. When I am selfish, guess what goes into first place in my life? Me! I put myself ahead of God and Nancy, who should be number one and number two.  It messes up my relationship with Him and my marriage relationship.

You would think stopping selfishness in our lives would not be that difficult because we know the problems that it causes. We know it wreaks havoc on relationships in general and on our marriages in particular. My selfishness always affects my marriage in a negative way and I know it’s not worth it but…. The positive thing is that I know the answer to the problem and I know the source of the strength to stop my selfishness. Both answers are the same - Jesus. Back to Him being the only unselfish person to ever live. The interesting thing though is that He was tempted to be selfish! The Bible tells us that Jesus was tempted in all things. So my temptation to be selfish is not a sin. It is acting out and being selfish that is the sin. This is what works for me. This keeps the distraction of selfishness out of my marriage. When I am tempted to act selfishly, I go to Him. Every single time He has the answer. I just have to listen.