Outserving my wife?!?

We had just made a quick trip to California see my Mom and Dad and then travel another hour to see our son and his wife, who were in the middle of transition. We were there to show our support and just hang out with them in this challenging time of their lives. We arrived on a Thursday at Seth and Sarah's apartment and spent the evening with them and then spent Friday with them shopping and seeing a movie. We came home and sat around and talked awhile and then it was time for bed. My wife was enjoying the conversation with the kids.During the conversation, Seth had inflated the mattress that we would sleep on and I was helping our daughter do some things.

When I had come back into the room, nothing had been done with the bed and in my "little man pea brain" or maybe lack of one, I had thought my wife would have made the bed. Little yellow warning lights and bells and buzzers from the Holy Spirit went off in my head but I did the "manly" thing and ignored Him and them...My face apparently showed disgust or irritation that the bed was not made and my very perceptive wife caught me on it and said "Was I supposed to make the bed?" and I said "No" and began to angrily put the sheets and blankets on it..."No, I'll do it!"

The conviction I began to feel was awful...here I was...a Christian....a follower of Jesus...pastor...dad...husband...acting like a spoiled 2 year old because no one (my wife) had made the bed. During the whole time the Holy Spirit was saying "Shut up and serve this wonderful wife I have given you...What the heck is your problem, bub?" (Only He said it in a nice, very convicting way). I grew up in the South, where I watched some women wait on their husbands hand and foot and somehow that got a foothold in my psyche and it creeps up and shows its ugly head in my expectations in my marriage.

I really don't understand it because my mom and dad loved to serve each other and my dad was always a Southern gentleman and treated my mom like a queen... always finding ways to serve her and show affection. And that's how I started out in our marriage... trying to learn (a key phrase) to serve and not so much expect anything in return...but the Specter of Expectations would show up and haunt me and I would do his bidding.(I am wondering if Expectations is related to Expectorations, just some much spit) I love my wife and would do anything for her...that's what I say but sometimes I don't always live it out.

A group of men from our church went to a Promise Keepers meeting in Boise, Idaho years ago. I remember distinctly one speaker, Wellington Boone, share what the Lord had taught him about marriage... one thing he said was that he was never going to let his wife outserve him. He would look for ways to serve her, love her, affirm her. If she did anything for him, he was going to do twice as much for her...He was never going to let her outserve, out love, out anything him. In a word, he had learned to become a servant. He and his wife always had this "Holy Contest" going on on serving one another.

Sounds vaguely familiar!!! Jesus said "I didn't come to be served but to serve", and by inference He also meant that to be our example. "The world will know you are my disciples because of the love you have and show for one another." I hate it when the Holy Spirit does that in me...I mean convict me...but I really love it when He does that and I respond to His nudgings. Gulp! gulp! Gulp!

Well back to my story, When my wife walked off, I knew what I had to do...I apologized profusely, said I was sorry a hundred times or so and promised the Lord that I would do better the next time He gave me an opportunity to serve my wife...and He is holding me to it...Everyday...if I look for it, and that is a very big IF...I can find ways to serve my wife and children, my friends, even strangers...and in serving them I am serving my Lord... for He said as you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto Me. Yikes!

I don't think I would have expected Jesus to make the bed and serve me...in fact I would have fallen all over myself finding ways to make the bed and do anything else for Him...so why can't I so that for my wife? I going to need some more practice until I can do it naturally, I guess.

So Lord, help me be like you and not let anyone, including my wife, outserve me. You are a servant...make me one too.