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.

A path to lasting joy

When someone serves you thoughtfully and lovingly, it can really make you feel awesome! For instance, when I got home from work yesterday and was relaxing for a minute on the couch while baking cake after dinner (I tend to make my evenings as busy at home as my days are busy away from home), Paul casually rubbed my foot and it felt so good. I hadn't realized how tense and sore my feet and legs were! But you know what was even better? When I mentioned how good that little rub made me feel, he got all excited and asked if he could rub my feet! Oh my goodness that was nice. It was a kind and thoughtful act performed in a way that made me feel special to him instead of a burden on him (serving with a poor attitude can make the person you're helping feel worse than if you'd done nothing, unfortunately), and it filled up my heart with gratitude and love. But if I came home every night and expected Paul to serve me, without doing or even desiring to do anything for him out of my love for him, that joy I feel in receiving his love would soon fade and wither away. Joy and self-centeredness cannot coexist. Pleasure can survive for a while longer, but even that eventually dies under the scorching sun of selfishness, and in time the one served comes to look upon the one loving and serving with contempt (unless by God's grace the hardened heart is softened enough to begin to love in return). So I find that in giving myself and my time and my energy to Paul - to try to serve him and love him thoughtfully, gently, and reverently - not thinking of what I might gain but of how I might pour over him the fullness of my love for him - a spring of joy starts up in my own soul. By choosing to make another's happiness my goal, even though I do it stumbling like a child learning to walk, I find more true happiness and joy for myself than if I had pursued my own wellbeing with all the passion and strength I could muster. It's interesting how that works, isn't it? When we follow the commands of God - to consider others better than ourselves, to look out for their needs, or to imitate Jesus in our relationships with other people (and remember, He washed His disciples' feet!) - we end up with more joy and peace and fulfillment than when we try to forge our own paths to obtain those things! Now let's see if I can remember this the next time I'm in the middle of a conflict between doing what I know is best, to show love for someone else, and doing what makes me feel comfortable and happy in the moment...

Needs

There is one sense in which it is good to think about our needs - to realize we have them and that we are, thus, dependent on God for everything in our lives, regardless of how greatly we wish we could dictate and control it all ourselves. This honest recognition and admission of our needs helps us to be humble before God, and eats away at our pride.

There is another sense, however, in which it is not good to think about our needs. Meeting our needs should never be as important to us as meeting the needs of other people. I most definitely don't live up to that! But I desire to do so. To set aside my own needs (and even more, my wants disguised as needs) to focus on meeting the needs of other people in my life is a goal worth pursuing, I think.

You know the funny thing about it, though? If I don't first recognize my own need for repentance and for God's grace, I will never be able to focus thoroughly on the needs of others, because only His grace can give me that power.