Overcoming the Natural Man

Mosiah 3:19 says, “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”

One of the great tests of mortality is to overcome the Natural Man.  When I think of the “natural man” I think of characteristics such as selfishness, anger, lust, pride, and disobedience to the commandments.  All of these characteristics can be extremely detrimental to relationships, both romantic and friendships.  I have seen how these character traits have torn apart couples who started out their relationships very strongly.  It is all too easy to get lazy and start to let the natural man take over.  In John Gottman’s book, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, he talks about the “4 horsemen of marriage”.  The 4 horsemen are criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.  All of these things are characteristics of the natural man.  Satan tries so hard to get us to give in to the natural man tendencies to be self-centered and prideful as well as to criticize others.  He knows that if he can get you started down the path of wickedness by doing small, seemingly insignificant things, it will be much easier to tempt you later on. 

When we don’t allow natural man tendencies to become prevalent in our lives and align our lives with what God wants for us, we will be blessed.  In a BYU devotional in October 2017, Elder Carl B. Cook of the Seventy said, “Blessings do come as we submit our will to Heavenly Father, and the more fully we submit our will to Him, the richer the blessings will be. They may not be the blessings we expect, but they will always be the blessings we need.”  Working to submit our will to the will of God will be a constant daily battle.  I have seen in my past relationships how not submitting my will to the will of God set me up for failure.  I tried to talk myself into doing things that I knew wouldn’t bring me happiness in the long run, but I really wanted them now!  That is another characteristic of the natural man.  The natural man seeks instant gratification without thought of the consequences that may come.  I know that as we seek to overcome the natural man, our lives will become more focused on God and our relationships will improve.  Overcoming the natural man will not be instant and it will take work and a lot of time, but it will be well worth it in the end.