Humility

When my journey towards becoming a better man really started in May of 2011, I had a lot of work to do. A few months into it, my wife told me she saw humility. I never thought about that before. Apparently, I had become convinced that I knew pretty much everything and was always right. Normal guy stuff. Will not ask for directions, doesn't read instructions, says "I know" a lot, most things thought or spoken begin with "I" and have the ability to make most conversation revolve around us. Men, yeah.
So. Prior to that, I couldn't have told you the definition of humility. Or demonstrated it.
She said that it was the first real change she saw in me. Good start. During our 5 day marriage intensive ( BestMarriage.com ) we figured out that I had trained myself to argue with everyone. My first reaction was to resist anything I was told or accused or if anyone offered advice. The other big issues was specifically my reaction to my wife and other women. Many, many, many many of us men have become hard wired to resist or ignore or challenge anything spoken to us by a female. Serious problem if you are married. I guess just becoming aware of myself and my actions was all it took to start the change. It still isn't easy. Years of developing habits and attitudes like that don't change overnight. I still have to keep myself in check and make an effort to do the right thing. Still don't do it every time. Joel and Kathy teach that true change in people will probably take up to 3 years of consistently making better choices and decisions. Guess that's why Jesus took over 3 years to get the deciples to become great men of faith. We are retraining our brains to automatically do good.
So the challenge in this one is to listen to yourself. Think about how you respond to people. You might be surprised how you sound. Heck, get really bold. Ask your wife if you have become an arrogant, obnoxious, rude jackass. If she hesitates the answer is probably yes. It's not her fault, it's yours. Think about it. Pray about it. Pause before you react or respond to anything. Try it for a day and see what happens. Not gonna be easy. Sorry. But it's worth it. Maybe it really will take three years. So what? Those three years are going to pass either way. Might as well be making your family stronger along the way.