If real love does not insist on its own way, how much of the problems in my marriage are from failing to live this scripture. Heaven Not Harvard
Godly Parenting,  Marriage

Its Own Way: Having 1 Cor. 13 Love in my marriage

February 20, 2015 /

Sunday, my husband and I decided to cook spaghetti together. We had different ideas about making the sauce. Tomato sauce is one of the few things that I have worked to perfect, so I started to fight for my way.

What should have been a simple discussion about which step should go first, started to be about who was a better chef, smarter, and generally the most rightest person in all the universe.

What should have been a simple discussion became who was the most rightest in the universe #1Cor13 Click To Tweet

I silently prayed for the right heart in that moment, and adjusted my attitude before it became a fight. Yet, I should have stopped before I started.

The next day, God pointed me right to what He wanted me to see. My daughter was having a rough day with her attitude. She decided to try her hand at talking back. After her third or fourth visit to timeout, I tried some instruction about why she should talk to me with love and respect. Because of who God is and what love means, so I pulled out the bible and began to read to her 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4-7 specifically.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

And like most times I start to use the Bible in parenting, the person that gets most convicted is me. If real love does not insist on its own way, how much of the problems in my marriage are from failing to live this scripture. Heaven Not Harvard I know this familiar passage, many people do.  But I was really struck by how I can be convicted new of its truths. In that moment, I had a renewed spirit to be patient and kind with my testy child. Then I read verse 5 and flashed back to the spaghetti incident the night before.

1 Corinthians 13 says that love does not insist on its own way.

Period. Not sometimes, not even when your spaghetti sauce recipe is perfect.

Bummer.

I started thinking about what my marriage would look like if I quit insisting on my own way. I started thinking about why the sauce mattered to me. Questioning my method felt like attacking my competency in the kitchen, as an intelligent person, even.

Ooooh, I was making him feel the exact same way. Men need respect. They crave it, but American culture has done a great job of teaching us to treat men like overgrown children. We’ve forgotten what respecting your husband looks like.

I didn’t realize how many times, over little things, I had been disrespecting him by arguing. I’ve been so afraid of the consequences of doing things his way, I never thought about the consequences of insisting on mine. I was casting aside his leadership and opinions without really considering his expertise and wisdom, or even his feelings.

I wonder how much resentment and frustration I’ve caused in our marriage from insisting on my way without a good reason except my personal preference. I could be such a loving example of grace by respecting his ideas. I need to give him freedom to express his way. And do my best to let it go when that isn’t the way I like it. Its Own Way - Heaven Not Harvard - learning to let it go instead of fighting for my own way. Loving my husband through respecting him.

Turns out being “right” is a lot less loving than letting him be right. Are there times to insist? Yes, when we’re insisting on God’s way, not our own.

Turns out being right is a whole lot less loving than loving RIGHTLY. Have a 1Cor.13 Marriage today. Click To Tweet

For the rest, learn to fold his socks his way, organize his drawers the way he likes them, make the sauce his way. Who knows, when I stop insisting, he might decide he likes it my way once I give him the freedom to choose. Heck, I might learn that I actually like his way better. I’ll work on admitting that later.

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