Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Lately, I’ve been going through a series on marriage and how my thoughts have changed after one year. Today, I’m going to be talking about how I spend so much time looking at myself in marriage.
Some of you will probably be surprised when I wrote last time on how marriage is not about me, and today, the idea is “Look at me!” Of course, I did such purposefully just to show a contrast. While I do believe that I should look at myself, I don’t believe I look at myself the same way.
It has been said that when you marry God gives you a giant mirror and says “This is what you are like!” When we live with a spouse, it’s easy to really see all the negatives. After all, we all have them. When you marry, there are no secrets left. You get to see the good, the bad, and the ugly as it were.
So what happens when you find something about that person that you just wish wasn’t there or find something really irritating? It’s so tempting to say “How can they possibly be that way?” It is at that point then that the “Look at me” idea comes into play. While it is easy to condemn attitudes and such in others, we can just forget about how we do the same thing.
Looking at me makes me realize “Wait. I’m being a bit hypocritical here.” Now of course, that doesn’t mean that there’s always an exact one-to-one parallel, but we all have areas we can improve on and when we see our spouse’s areas, we can choose to think about how we have to change them rather than realizing the only person we can directly change is ourselves.
Note that this is not the same as condoning. In these cases, you can readily admit that these are things that need to change. This is the biblical principle about removing the log from your own eye before removing the speck from your neighbor’s eye. That speck needs to be removed, but your log needs to be removed as well. The best way you can help your spouse is by working to change yourself.
If you’re doing this also, you will live with a lot more grace and come to realize just how great that grace is for you. The realization can come of “Wow. In some ways I really am like that.” What you can do then is to work on yourself the most, realizing you will influence your spouse, and perhaps that influence will come through the change of yourself. It will be the change that makes the spouse be inspired to change themselves.
In conclusion, the point of today is that we need to make sure we’re getting our own houses cleaned. While we can discuss such matters with our spouse, we need to be willing to look in the mirror at ourselves and say “They do need to change here, but am I any better? What am I going to do about myself?”
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