How to Find True Harmony

The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. — Numbers 5:23

I once heard a joke about a husband and wife who weren’t speaking to each other. The husband had a dilemma since he needed his wife to wake him at five the next morning so he could catch a flight. Not wanting to be the one to capitulate first, he wrote her a note saying, “Please wake me up at five,” and placed it on her pillow. The next morning, the man woke up at seven. “Why didn’t you wake me?” he yelled at his wife. “I did!” she replied and pointed to a piece of paper next to him. It read, “Get up!”

The joke is funny, but the sad truth is that many relationships are damaged by personal pride. In the 17 years that I’ve been married, I have learned that while the most important ingredient in a healthy marriage is love, the second most important ingredient is humility. Without the ability to let go of pride, all the love in the world cannot preserve a marriage in the long run. Yet, if even just one party in a relationship is willing to become more humble, a relationship can undergo healing and complete restoration.

In this Bible verse, we read of the ritual procedure carried out when a woman was suspected of being unfaithful. As part of the process, God’s name was written on a piece of paper and dissolved in water that the woman would drink. If nothing happened to the woman after drinking the water, she was vindicated, and the marriage was restored.

The Jewish sages noted that this procedure demonstrated how much God values peace in the home—He was even willing to sacrifice His own honour by having His name erased to restore harmony.

If God can let His honour be diminished for the sake of harmony, so can we. We can place someone else’s feelings above our own pride. We can be the first to speak and the first to say, “I’m sorry.” Sometimes, the bigger person is the one who knows how to make himself small. It is in humility that we find our true glory.

•Unless otherwise noted, all Bible verses in this plan are from the New International Version (NIV).