Boastfulness

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
1 Co 13:4

“It was good that you felt free to share with the congregation your feelings toward your wife. Most Chinese men don’t do that,” a lady said to me after church. I don’t remember saying anything from the pulpit except mentioning that it was our 29th wedding anniversary. In fact, I was a little embarrassed to even mention that to the people since I believe private matters should be kept private. Don’t we all feel at little awkward when we witness PDA of any sort?

Public displays of affection among lovers are in fact a form of boastfulness, which often causes people to feel uncomfortable. Why do couples even feel the urge to tell the entire world how much they love each other by their overt displays of affection? Couples who parade their love before the watching world often end up in separation or divorce. The fairy tale wedding picture of Princess Di and her prince has forever been etched in millions of people’s minds, yet we all know how the marriage ended. It was just a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal that created a noisy scene of artificial romance that evaporated a lot sooner that we had expected.

Boastful romances aren’t always that long lasting. True love doesn’t usually make a scene or a declaration and its existence absolutely needs no validation and its being requires no proof of any kind. Romantic love is the only sort of love that needs various tokens to sustain its fragile existence and vows and sweet talk to vouchsafe its survival. Only the people who are insecure about their love find it necessary to speak incessantly about their love. We don’t usually boast about our parents’ love for us or how much we love our children, do we?

I do boast about my love for my wife, not so much to outsiders but to Kathy herself. I have become more and more boastful about what I am doing for her lately, which may be a direct violation of the apostle’s teaching. I speak about what household chores I do, as if they weren’t really my jobs. By doing those things I really am trying to do my wife a favor, not knowing that the expression of love should never be overly expressive or boastful. I was merely doing myself a favor by doing her a favor, since genuine expressions of love does have an absolute certainty of reciprocation.

My marriage may be in trouble if I feel the need to tell people that it is a happy one. Boastfulness is, in essence, a form of covering up the areas in which we feel insecure and insufficient. The expression and receiving of romantic love should always be as natural and spontaneous as trees budding and flowers blooming in the springtime. It does not call attention to itself, yet it commends all attention by its sheer disinterestedness