A Servant's Heart
Confession: We've been arguing over some really silly things lately. Specifically, who went to get groceries the last time and who's turn it is to get them this time. It sounds silly, because it is. It's also crazy immature the way we both throw a fit about it in order to get out of running a simple errand. We seemed to have developed spirits of selfishness instead of serving each other. It makes me feel terrible when I stop and think about it. In acting this way, how much farther from following Jesus could we be? Yuck.
We constantly keep score for the assurance of fairness. For there is nothing worse than a marriage that isn't fair, right? I'm thinking we're probably the only couple that stuggles with this sort of thing (wink), and there are two pieces of advice that we should keep top of mind before starting the fairness argument:
- Life isn't fair: My mom's famous words. Apparently I often pleaded with her about these types of things because these words are branded in my mind forever. It's true. Life is full of things that are not fair and we must simply deal with them. So why do we think it would be any different with our spouse? Mom was right. (And her second most remembered phrase was "Because I'm the mom and I said so!")
- It's not about having a wife, it's about being a husband: It kind of sounds backward, but my friend Justin was telling me about this the other day. I get to be a husband and should focus on doing my job as such, and doing it extremely well. If I'm not focusing on my responsibilities as a husband, that means I'm usually focusing on what my wife is doing (or not doing) and how she might be able to do it better. I can't control her actions, I can only control my own.
Having a servant's heart is extremely difficult. It goes against everything the world tells us we should do, that we should look out for ourselves and make sure that we are taken care of first and foremost.
What would happen if we actually started living by the golden rule and putting others first, ahead of ourselves?