Letting the dishes pile up

When something needs to be done, there are three possibilities that can occur. First, you can take care of it. Second, you can ignore it and let someone else take care of it. Third, you can ignore, and the other someones in your life can ignore it, and it will never get done (although you can opt out of this third path at any time...).

For example, if I come home late from work, tired after a long day, and I see a pile of dishes in the sink, I can wash them right then or I can ignore them and hope Paul will take care of them. If he does, I have successfully gotten away with not doing the dishes that night. But you know what else I have accomplished? I have succeeded in putting my interests above his - because no one does dishes just for the fun of it, and everyone is tired at the end of the day. I have succeeded in valuing my time more than his - because it is going to take one of us 10-15 minutes to clean it up, and if I think my time is more important, than it certainly won't be me (or I'll do it grudgingly with sighs or complaints). I have succeeded in putting my husband down and taking his love for me for granted instead of treasuring and respecting him.

On the other hand, if he doesn't do the dishes that night either, there are that many more dishes staring up at me the next morning when I'm trying to get ready for work, and the longer I let them sit there, the more they become a burden on me and on Paul - they make the kitchen messy and cluttered, impede anything productive in the kitchen (like making dinner!), and eventually reduce our clean dishes to the point where we're eating everything on napkins (this hasn't actually ever happened yet, thankfully! :) )

Do you see the issue? With something as trivial as dishes it doesn't really matter that much whether you deny yourself and get the job done. You may do it the next day, when the pile is beginning to drive you crazy, or when you aren't so tired. But with many other things in life it really does matter that you deny yourself when the task - or the opportunity, if you want to be optimistic - presents itself. If one of my friends is struggling with serious emotional or spiritual issues and wants to talk to me about them, I should take up that opportunity and fill that need no matter how inconvenient it may be, because that is what it looks like to consider others as better than myself, and that is how a Christian ought to be living. If Paul comes home from school discouraged and exhausted, I should lay hold of the opportunity to shower him with love, truth, and encouragement, even if I am also tired and emotionally weary, because that is what it means to put the needs of others before my own needs, and that is how a Christian ought to be living.

Obviously this isn't something we can do in our own strength (well, maybe some of you can, but I think most of us need God's grace and strength far more than we admit. I know I do). The wonderful and glorious truth, though - the one that enables us to do far harder tasks than we ever thought possible to meet the needs of other people - is that God will give us the strength we need to obey and honor Him. He has prepared good works for us to do, and if they are above our strength He will carry the rest of the load, if we ask Him to be our help.

And those little things like the dishes in the sink? They are our training-ground, our chance to practice denying ourselves so that when the opportunities come to do great things for the kingdom of God we will be prepared to give all that we have, through Him and for Him, in love and service to others.