Charity Seeketh Not Her Own

One of the most important building blocks of any home is the relationship between a husband and wife. Since God created this relationship in the Garden of Eden, He's really the one you should look to when you're trying to improve it. He wrote the instruction book on it (The Bible) and normally when you get a new product, reading the instructions is a great place to start.

It's interesting to note that the Bible does not classify Love as a prerequisite for marriage. But it IS commanded to be a part of marriage. Now I certainly would not have married Professor NO if I did not love him, but that is cultural, not Scriptural. Love is a choice and an action and should be a deliberate part of a couple's relationship. This truth extends to the whole family unit as well.

One of the defining passages on love is I Corinthians 13. There are many facets that it mentions, but today I want to reflect on the part of how love seeketh not her own - in other words, love doesn't seek it's own interests and needs, but rather those of others. Here's where I recently observed this in the practical outworkings of life....

The other evening Professor NO and I were getting ready for bed. I'm a bit of a night owl, and tend to putter around tidying up all of the house, planning out the next day's events, activities, and attire, and chattering about everything that comes into my head. The Professor rises at a very early, pre-sunrise hour and does not share my night-time perkiness so much. :-P

As we crawled into bed he admonished me that it was time to sleep and he really couldn't carry on a decent conversation anymore. Kudos to him for directness and honesty. :) So I tried to settle down to sleep, but then one of us mentioned something about his work that day or the next, and he suddenly recalled the story of a customer he'd had. This particular customer apparently was in great error regarding the proper wheel-drive that is best for a vehicle to have when driving in the snow. The Professor is from the frozen tundra (almost) and HAD to help the poor misinformed customer out. Said customer didn't believe him till he cited his native residence, but finally all was corrected. However, this caused me to voice a long-held question that had been brushed into the corner of my mind on numerous occasions, regarding the differences of front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, and four-wheel drive. This question began the Professor's evening class on vehicles. He began describing the difference between them, how they worked, and how it all pertained to driving in snow. I nodded and learned and became educated in a little more detail than I had, perhaps, bargained for. By now, I was the one ready for sleep. But he was just getting warmed up. Next thing I know, he brings all-wheel drive into the discussion. After learning I didn't know about that either, he defined it for me, which would have sufficed just fine. But then he launched into a discussion about traction and friction and the physics of moving cars and ice/snow and all kinds of thing I don't remember b/c I was fading out fast....

"honey?" I asked.
"Yeah?" he replied.
"I thought you had to sleep b/c you had to get up in the morning..."
He sighed. "Oookay. I'm sorry... I'll be quiet now..."
"Well, I didn't completely mean that, but it IS late, you already said you need sleep, and I'm getting pretty sleepy too." I answered.

We settled into a truce for the evening of no more rambling on things that put the other one to sleep and all was well in the NO household. But the whole event set me to thinking...

Simply put, we do the things that we want to. And what we want to do is based on our personal want-to priority list. This priority list is not always equivalent to our I-know-I-need-to-and-I-plan-to priority list. At the beginning, the Professor's priority list involved sleep so he could work. Conversation was a luxury not to be afforded, even though I wanted to talk. But suddenly, he had the opportunity to explain something (which he loves to do) and conversation became a greater priority than sleep. I have been guilty of the same on countless occasions.

When you boil it all down, these are the actions of people who are seeking their own interests. We find it very very hard to seek the interests of others when those things have no natural interest to us. But if we're to obey the command to love, for the sake of our homes and our family relationships we must deliberately practice doing just that.

I Corinthians 13:4-7
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.