Day 124: Household Projects

I’m notoriously bad at doing special household projects. Sure, I do my share of cleaning, but some projects I leave undone for months. That’s why I asked you on day 107 to make a list of projects or whatever that you need me to do. You gave me that list on Sunday and yesterday I completed one of its items. I’m hoping to complete every item on the list in the coming weeks, but I’m not making any promises: the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

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Day 120: Soli Deo Gloria

Yesterday afternoon, we decided to clean our kitchen and living room, with me opting for the former and you the latter. Before we started, though, you went upstairs to lay the baby down. 30 minutes later, you still hadn’t come back. So I crept upstairs to confirm my suspicion that you’d fallen asleep. You had. For my act of love, then, I let you sleep and I cleaned the kitchen and the living room myself.

It wouldn’t be hard to guess how this scenario would likely have played out a year ago. I probably would have woken you up so that you could do your job or let you sleep but made sure you cleaned later. In either case, though, I might have suspected that you fell asleep intentionally (love believes the best, anyone?) and even subtly accused you of that.

Now though, my thoughts are less and less about how to satisfy my needs and desires (though they are about that, which isn’t necessarily bad) and more and more about how to satisfy your needs and desires.* Throughout my day, my thoughts consistently and automatically turn toward you. I’m also gaining a clearer understanding of what it is that God requires of me as a husband, the purpose for which he designed marriage, what things please you, what kind of person you are and want to be, etc.

In addition, I’m happier and I desire you more. Sure, there are times when I do things for you purely from a sense of duty. But, week by week, my obligations and feelings (i.e., desires and emotions) are lining up. As a newlywed, I had strong (positive!) feelings for you and a sense of duty to commit to you and treat you well, but lacked a firm character underlying my feelings. Then I went through a time in which my feelings waned and my sense of duty remained, while my character slowly developed (due in part, it seems, to my commitment to you). Through 365, I’m happy to be in a place where my character is developing and feelings for you are welling up from that character.

But don’t get me wrong. Even though there’s been change, I’m far from where I need to be. Though my thoughts are less about me than they were, they’re still mostly about me. I’m still entrenched in false beliefs, whether dispositional or occurrent, about who sits on the throne of my life. My desires and emotions continually favor me over God, you, or others. I’m sick of it. What’s worse, though, is that I’m absolutely certain that I’m blind to most of my selfishness. (But it’s by God’s grace that I am and that he reveals my sin to me little by little, since I might despair if I saw it in full view.*)

I’m not going to kid myself, then. 120 days isn’t going to reverse dispositions long established. And while working on my marriage is good, many other aspects of my life and character need transformation. Yet, I’m making progress, however slight.

I chalk this progress up to the grace of God. It’s all by his grace. It’s by grace alone. Grace, grace, grace. Grace. The impetus for working out my relationship with you is God working in me (Phil. 2:12-13). In other words, without God’s work in me, there would be no heart change.

Soli Deo Gloria

*Obviously this doesn’t exhaust my daily thought life. My primary goal is to make God the consistent and automatic object of my thought.

*I got this point from Keller.

Day 64: Cleaning House

When I came home from work tonight, you looked majorly burned out from taking care of the kids. So I took the girls out for about an hour while you stayed home and rested. We stopped by Trader Joe’s while we were gone and bought you your flowers for the week. When we came back, you greeted us at the door looking happy and rested.

Giving you time alone wasn’t my official act of love, though. For day 64, I cleaned the kitchen for about 90 minutes. From the time our youngest was born about three months ago, we haven’t had much energy to keep our house clean. Instead, we’ve focused on keeping things somewhat presentable. But tonight, I actually gave the kitchen a deep clean. Maybe I inspired you, because you gave the living room a good cleaning once you saw me cleaning the kitchen.