I have been listening to a book on tape regarding marriage. Yikes! I have failed the respect department of our marriage in a big way! My role is to respect the position that God gave him rather than everything that he does. Just like a soldier respects his Sargent or whoever is over him, so it is for the role of husband and wife. I may think sometimes that I am smarter or whatever or may wish that my husband was like this or that...but am I thinking of myself more highly than I ought? Probably. It has been too easy to pick him apart...he fails everyday, he messes up his words, he is not the most eloquent of men, he frequently does things that make no logical sense. So he gets up in the middle of the night and searches the internet at 2 a.m. and then 4 a.m., drinks coffee and wonders why he is tired all the time...He forgets all the time, sometimes literally five minutes ago, he loses things, he seems to wander, and how I wish that he would be the spiritual leader than I envision, but he is the one God has given and that I have chosen...it is up to me to encourage him to be all that God has called him to be. He often seems to be living way below his potential, content to relax...I get very frustrated and really do not know how to encourage, but one thing is for sure, my way of trying to get him motivated is not working. He needs respect above all else...
Respect means to esteem highly, to think more highly of him than of myself...wow, I have not done that...probably not since we have been married. I think I have been influenced by the world more than I even realize and mix my selfishness and sin in there and disrespect and lack of love is what you get. Marriage does not work well in that way of thinking...
I have one of the sweetest and most loving men I know though... and I take him for granted in a big way. Why do I always see all his faults? Why am I so quick to criticize and even sarcastically make fun of him? We are one! I am so clueless, so cruel in so many ways and I am hurting him as well as myself.
So, he just came home. I thought I would do well to respect him, I'm not sure if I did. It is harder to tell when you disagree I think...he says he is processing what our pastor said about Malachi 3:10,the verse about bringing in the whole tithe into the storehouse, test me in this says the Lord Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it." He thinks that the pastor is just trying to put more pressure on the men...I don't see it that way at all- because we are to be walking by faith and not by sight. True that is what we are supposed to be doing, but that is much easier said than true..."Take my yoke upon me and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." It's not about us working harder, which I believe my husband is getting all wrong, it is about believing that God will meet our needs according to His riches in glory...It is not easy, that is true, but it is still what God calls us to do. He likes to disagree without all the facts and he is not willing to get all the facts. It is much easier to assume that we know enough to make a judgement, but that is not true! How do I talk to him about this in a respectful way and yet still let him know that I disagree?
Respect is soooooo hard! I think it is much easier when the "king" wears robes and sits on a throne than when he is just like me...it is so much easier to respect someone when you are looking at them from a distance. Lord help me in this area...I know it is your way to respect him, I need your help in this holy spirit.
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