TEXT: Proverbs 19:11

SUBJECT: Family Life #39:Cut Me Some Slack!

When it comes to getting along with your husband or wife, few verses in the Bible are more important than this one. It’s made up of two parts, the first of which you know very well:

You need to control your anger, to temper it with wisdom and kindness, and humility. It’s not wrong to be mad, but it is wrong to stay mad or to do cruel and unjust things under the power of your madness.

Anger can kill your marriage, often with a single blow, a word you’d love to take back, but you can’t, an act you’d do anything to make up for, but it cannot be made up for. If you want a happy and lasting marriage, you’ve got to find the wisdom to control your temper. The wisdom can be found in God and had for the asking:

I’m not against classes in anger management, but they can never take the place of prayer—sincere, humble, and believing prayer. For the Lord attaches no promise to courses and counseling; the promise is to those who pray for the wisdom to control their anger.

This is an important issue and deserves careful study, much prayer, and hard work. Saying Control your temper is a lot easier than doing it, especially under the grind of daily life that leaves us tired, discouraged, and not at our best.

But we’ll set aside that part of the Proverb for now and look at the other part. It, too, is the Word of God, and obeying it will make your marriage far happier than it is.

The discreet, godly man does not lose his temper at every little thing. Why? Because he is able to overlook a transgression. In other words, he doesn’t get mad at every little thing; because he’s not looking for it, he doesn’t notice it.

He’s not a nitpicker; he’s not eager to find fault; he is not only slow to anger, but he is slow to criticize. This is the topic of today’s sermon: cutting your husband or wife some slack. Not wearing her out with corrections or keeping him up half the night with a long list of helpful hints for holy husbands!

If some marriages are killed by a single blow of infidelity or domestic violence, many more die the death of a thousand criticisms. The criticisms don’t have to be mean or hateful; they may be true and insightful and offered with a real desire to help your husband or wife.

These "loving" criticisms are often the worst kind! I feel guilty when I’m mean to my wife. But when all of my criticism is "constructive", if all I want to do is help her by pointing our her every fault and sin for the last twenty years, then I don’t feel guilty! And I’m tempted to keep up the good work, which is, in fact, a very bad work that should be confessed and repented of!

Is criticizing your husband or wife ever permitted by God? Of course it is! Correcting your spouse can be an act of love and that’s what marriage is about: love. No one is more loving than the Lord Jesus Christ and He corrected His loved ones, sometimes in red hot anger.

In places, the Bible commands criticizing your loved ones, for example,

• "If your brother sins against you, rebuke him" (Luke 17:3).

• "Now we exhort your brethren, warn those who are unruly" (I Thessalonians 5:14).

• "Exhort one another daily" (Hebrews 3:13).

In other places, the Bible sees criticism as a good thing and a correction wise people take well and become wiser for taking it.

• "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil that shall not break my head" (Psalm 141:5).

• "A reproof enters into a wise man more than a hundred stripes into a fool" (Proverbs 17:10).

Thus, criticizing your husband or wife is not wrong. At times, it is necessary and will often make him or her the better for it. But if this is true, what am I getting at? If criticism is good for your spouse, I should be urging you to do more of it! But I’m not doing that, but the opposite: most of us need to do less of it. Most of our marriages would be happier—and holier—if either or both spouses would criticize less often than they do.

Criticism is like garlic: a pinch of it makes your meal tasty, but put in a bucket, and nobody can eat it! This is how many couples live at home—and a lot of them are Christians!

Some know they’re criticizing and justify it with verses in the Bible and with the claim that they only want what’s best! When others are critical, we assume their hearts are black with pride and malice. But when I’m doing it, my heart is whiter than snow and overflowing with love and compassion!

Others don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve always been critical and no more notice it than a fish notices water. In a certain way, this is better: for they’re not willfully sinning against the Lord. But, on balance, it is worse, for the non-stop corrections are making life miserable for their husband or wife. And teaching the kids a lesson they would be better off not learning.

This brings up an important question: How much is too much? If the Lord wants me to criticize my wife and times—but not too often—how do I know when to stop?

Here, we don’t have a proof-text. No verse says, "Thou shalt not rebuke thy wife more than five times a day!" Or, "Lord, how often should I correct my husband? Up to seven times? No, but correct him seventy times seven!"

If we don’t have a specific number to go by, we have to fall back on the general teaching of the Bible and the wisdom the Holy Spirit promises to give us. My answer is not complete, but it’s a good place to start.

A PLACE TO START

Start with the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you have have them do unto you" . Would you want your husband to correct you as often as you correct him? If not, you’re correcting him too often. Now, if you think he needs it more than you do, go back and read Romans 3 and remember that everyone is a sinner—and no one more so than the one who doesn’t think he is.

In the second place, ask yourself: Is it working? Your husband or wife needs changing—we all do! Pointing out his faults is one way to do it, but it is not the only way. I Peter 3 says that some men are changed—not by being criticized all the time—but by observing their wife’s chaste conduct, coupled with respect. The same thing is true with husbands: where a sharp word will aggravate your wife, a godly, loving, patient example will change her.

Thirdly, see what effect your criticism is having on you. If you’re a wife, is it making you the leader of the family? A lot of men—good men—would rather give in that fight all the time. And they do, but this is not God’s will for marriage and it cannot be good for him or you. If you’re the husband, is it fostering pride and making you a bully around the house? Or, if she’s not responding well to it, is it making you feel sorry for yourself? Making you a martyr? Sin has a bigger effect on the one sinning than the one sinned against.

Fourthly, see what it is doing to your husband or wife. Does she seem beaten down? Is he worn out all the time? Age and bad health, work and money problems can wear us out, but nothing does it more than the continual dripping of a contentious spouse.

Finally, is it consistent with the example of Jesus Christ? Did the Lord criticize His loved ones? Yes He did! But how often did He do it? Read a Gospel and just mark the times He set them straight. The fact is—though He is the holiest of men—and they were foolish, sinful, proud, and stubborn, He seldom corrected them. He was both patient and firm, but the emphasis was very much on patience.

If you’re not a nagging husband or wife, thank the Lord for it! There’s plenty in your spouse to nag and if you don’t do it, it is the Lord’s mercy! You ought to thank Him for it.

If your husband or wife is not a nag, thank the Lord for that too! What a blessing it is to have a spouse for you instead of against you, one who doesn’t notice the little things you do wrong but appreciates the big things you do right.

If you are too critical, do something about it! Start by confessing your sins to the Lord and the pride or contempt or lack of wisdom and love that lies behind them! But don’t stop there. Go on to exercise some self control. The best place to start is Proverbs 17:28 and James 1:19:

You may not intend to nag, carp, correct, and criticize all the time. But if you’re in the habit of doing so, you’ve got to get out of the habit and the best way to do that is by…closing your mouth once in a while and thinking before you speak.

But most of all, think of how much you have to be criticized for and how patient the Lord is with you. That’s the final answer to excess criticism! You’ll cut your husband or wife some slack only when you remember how much slack the Lord cuts you.