Lesson 69

Do Spiritual Disciplines Make Me A Better Person?

Kristi had been a Christian all her life, accepting the Lord as her Savior when she was a child. Over the years she built strong habits of the spiritual disciplines that helped her refrain from many areas of sin that she witnessed in her friends’ lives. She attended a Christian college and defined what she felt was her life mission. Life seemed to be centered around the Lord, the church, and building a Christian family.

The revelation of her husband’s secret sexual sins knocked Kristi’s spiritual legs out from under her. She was devastated that her husband could engage in infidelity in several ways when she thought he was a Christian. “During my husband’s struggle from impurity to purity, God began to show me that I was filled with pride because I thought I was more spiritual than he was. I kept hearing it in sermons and reading it in God’s Word: pride is a sin! I didn’t see my husband’s need for support and encouragement as God saw it. I sometimes resorted to judgment and demands instead of seeking God’s way of working together as a couple to fight this battle together. My hurt and anger often led to emotional reactions instead of seeking godly restoration. As God worked in my heart, I began to see my own shortcomings that led to my realization that I had my own issues to deal with. God has worked miracles in both of our lives in very different ways.”

Confessing her sin to her husband opened up new conversations about real-life applications of spiritual disciplines. Kristi could then see her weakness of falling into pride.