What's in it for Me?

Sunday 1/26/2014 5:42 AM

I recently became aware of some friends who are having marital difficulties.  This past week I have been reflecting on my own marriage and the difficulties I have experienced at times throughout our thirty-five years of marriage.  When I got married I made vows to love, honor and maintain Jaci, and to encourage her to develop the gifts God has given her.  Every time there has been difficulty in our relationship it is because of a lack of love.

Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ….”  The difficulty comes when I fail to give myself up for Jaci.  In my marriage, and in any relationship, there is a tendency to focus on me, to ask if the other person is meeting my needs.  When they fail to meet my needs in some area, and they will because no one can meet every need, I look to fulfill that need somewhere else and I justify my behavior by pointing out the deficiency in the other person.

God calls me to meet a much more difficult standard.  He asks me to deny myself and look to the needs of the other person, trusting him to meet my needs or to change my desires.  I am to sacrifice my own desire and look to meet the needs of the other person.

This definitely goes against the culture in which I live, which urges me to fulfill every desire I have in any way possible, the world and others be damned.  In my culture, self-fulfillment and self-realization are the goals for which I should strive.  God’s goal for his people can best be summarized by the words of Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others.”  If everyone had that mindset it would be a lot easier to have healthy relationships with other people and there would be a lot more love in the world.