What am I doing for my wife? Am I serving her? Am I trying to please her? When I focus on myself rather than my wife, I can see plenty of areas I need to grow in. If I focus on myself and where I should be pleasing my wife, I’m not going to be frustrated at my wife’s lack of meeting my expectations.

My wife Kristi and I celebrated our 38th anniversary a few days ago.

That day my daughter asked me what were a few things I’ve learned in all those years. I didn’t know she was going to ask my wife the same thing later, then post our responses on Facebook.

Since then I’ve been pondering: what has God taught me in 38 years of marriage? One reason he has probably given me 38 years so far is because I’m such a slow learner. Anyway, here are some things God has taught me:

Have no expectations of your spouse – only have expectations of yourself

I don’t mean that we should not expect our spouse to be faithful or that we should not expect our spouse not to abuse us. I mean that we should not expect our spouse to always meet our needs or appreciate us or serve us in certain ways. Unmet expectations can lead us to frustration and anger.

The only expectations I should have are of myself

What am I doing for my wife? Am I serving her? Am I trying to please her? When I focus on myself rather than my wife, I can see plenty of areas I need to grow in. If I focus on myself and where I should be pleasing my wife, I’m not going to be frustrated at my wife’s lack of meeting my expectations.

Try to be the biggest servant in the house

But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” MK 10:43-45

If anyone could have expected to be served, it would have been Jesus. Yet the greatest being in the universe became a servant and gave up his life for those who certainly didn’t deserve it. So my goal is not to worry about if Kristi is serving me or not, but my goal is by God’s grace to be the biggest servant in the house.

We all have blind spots

In other words, we all have things about ourselves we can’t see, or can’t see accurately. Therefore we should be quick to listen when our spouse mentions a sin or weakness they see. Before we respond, “What!! Me! No! I’m perfect in every way. I never respond harshly! I’m always gentle DOGGONE IT!” we should consider that this might be a blind spot and we aren’t seeing it as clearly as our spouse.

I probably have a log in my eye

Along the lines of having blind spots, before correcting our spouse on something we should check to see if we have any logs in our own eyes.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. MT 7:1-5

It’s so easy to pass judgment on our spouse for their failures or weaknesses. But Jesus tells us we should look at our own faults first, which are probably greater than our spouses. We should suspect a log in our own eye before jumping on the speck in our spouse’s. This will help us to be slow to correct, and merciful when we do.

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