It’s an assumption that many men and women have in marriage: You do your part and I’ll do mine. You have your 50% to do and I have my 50% to do. That’s fair, right? But even though it may seem fair and logical, it is setting a husband and wife up for disappointment and conflict.
Why? The biggest problem with the 50/50 plan is that it is nearly impossible to figure out if your spouse has met your halfway because neither of you can agree on what “halfway” is. My view of what is “halfway for Shawn” is different that what she thinks is halfway and vice-versa.
The 50/50 plan is NOT God’s design for marriage. And it is destined to fail for several reasons: (1) Acceptance is based on performance, (2) Giving is based on merit, (3) Motivation for action is based on how each spouse feels, and (4) Each spouse has a tendency to focus on the weaknesses of the other.
So what is God’s Plan? Well, folks at FamilyLife call it the 100/100 plan—it requires 100% effort from each of you to serve your spouse. Living out Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing out of selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than yourselves.”
Dennis Rainey has written a great article on this subject entitled “Superglue Your Marriage”. Simply go to http://www.familylife.com/articles. Then search (top right corner) on “Superglue Your Marriage” to find the article or use this link:
http://www.familylife.com/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=dnJHKLNnFoG&b=3873535&ct=4639269¬oc=1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment