36 Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever.
37 Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.
The point that stood out to me was the importance of counseling with the Lord and heeding the directions that He gives us. It reminded me of a chapter I read in John Gottman's book, which I have mentioned in previous posts. His book is called, "the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work". He talked about how accepting the influence of your spouse shows "love and esteem" for them. I think by listening to the counsel that the Lord gives us, shows Him our love and esteem for Him as well.
When we accept the influence of our spouse Gottmans says, "We make them a partner in decision making. We respect and honor each other and their opinions and feelings. We understand that for our marriages to thrive, we have to share the driver seat." There have been many times my husband and I have had this experience of learning how to be partners in our decisions. We have lived in many different states and cities, and each time we have needed to listen to each other as we have made decisions. I haven't felt pushed into one of these decision as we have had many in-depth discussions and talked about the pros and cons. When we have made a choice, we then counsel with the Lord. We have learned to accept each other's influence. One point to make here Gottman says is, "Accepting influence doesn't mean never expressing negative emotions toward your partner." When we make each other's feelings and opinions an important part of our marriages, then we can be honest with each other even if some of our feelings are negative.
There have been times when I have been irritated with a certain decision we are trying to make because I'm sure that I'm right. I'm sure all of us have experienced this type of situation in our marriages or other relationships when we know we are right. Something that H. Wallace Goddard said is, "We must set aside our provincial view of the world (and of our spouses) and be open to our partner's perspective. We must invite truth, the heavenly perspective."(Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage) I would add in here that we also need to be open to our Heavenly Father's perspective as well. As I shared before it's important that we are counseling with Him too, so He can direct us.
There are times when we don't listen or acknowledge our spouses thoughts and feelings. Moments like this can lead to pride. Pride is costly to our peace. President Ezra Taft Benson (a previous Prophet for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) said, "Pride is a sin that can readily be seen in others but is rarely admitted in ourselves ... Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. ...The antidote for pride is humility. ... God will have a humble people. Either we can choose to be humble or we can be compelled to be humble. ... Let us choose to be humble."(Beware of Pride) So, even though pride is very destructive in marriages, we can change. We can choose to be humble. We can counsel with our spouses and with the Lord.
I learned this lesson the hard way. My husband and I were making a decision about some further schooling. I didn't really feel like we should do it. My husband on the other hand thought we should. We discussed it at lengths many times. My Dad talked to us about it when we counseled with him and he didn't think it was the best option. We didn't know what else to do. I took it to Heavenly Father in my prayers and had an impression come to go somewhere else. I didn't want to do it. I was very against the counsel I had received and I was so against it, I never even told my husband. We didn't receive further direction, so we ended up making the decision to go on to this additional schooling.
Half way through that schooling we were praying about where to go when we got done. I received the same answer I had previously. I once again didn't want to tell my husband. I didn't for a couple weeks until I realized that I wasn't heeding the counsel I was given. I finally told my husband. We ended up going there and doing what we would have done before the additional schooling and cost. Neither of us liked it what he was doing. We had spent a lot of money to go to school to do something he didn't like. I was devastated that my pride had gotten in the way of us following Heavenly Father's counsel. He had tried to help us learn without the high cost, but we didn't listen. I constantly look to this experience now every time my pride starts getting in the way when we are making decisions.
In our marriages, if we don't listen to our spouses and accept their influence there are high costs too. Gottman said specifically speaking about husbands, "When a man is not willing to share power with his partner there is an 81 percent chance that his marriage will self-destruct." This isn't saying that women shouldn't listen and accept their spouse's influence as well. It takes practice and being willing to talk to each other. It's okay if you aren't great at accepting the influence of your spouse right now because we can always get better. Goddard says, "When we humbly turn our minds, our lives, and our purposes over to God, He will refine us. We begin to see with new eyes. We feel with new warmth and goodness."
Take the time to look at your marriage or relationship. Are you listening to each other's opinions and feelings? When you disagree with each other are you still respectful? Do you feel you have influence in your relationship? Do you easily get irritated with each other? Notice I framed these questions to look at yourself, not anyone else.
When we are humble and not prideful we can listen with respect to each other and receive counsel from God! This is a happy path!
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