“Jake. Listen to me. I’m your father. If you are going to hold that incident that happened eight years ago against your wife just so you can get back at her now, don’t. You think you can win this argument. You can’t. That’s not what marriage is. It’s not about winning or losing.”
I was watching a sitcom and this exchange between father and son. It stung because of its searing truth. I am guilty of doing this, many times. I do not let go of past wrongs and sometimes feel justified in attempting to win an argument simply to prove my contention that I was right from the beginning. Puerile? Yes. Stubborn? Unquestionably. Wrong? Always. I reflected upon my actions and lamented I never progressed beyond childhood in my emotional development.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
Ephesians 5:28-31 (ESV)
If every time I disagreed with my wife, these Words of God came to mind, I would immediately stop and reassess the situation. Marriage is not a competition. It is not school, the workplace, or athletics. We are not seeking to win a prize at the expense of one’s partner. We are working together for the upward calling and glory for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Husband and wife are one, each to be nourished by the other, as one flesh. Rabbi Julius Gordon eloquently wrote, “Love is not blind, it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.”
Husband and wife are on the same side. The competition stops now.
Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.