Organizing the Inside – Day 179 Different By Choice…God’s

February 29, 2012 at 1:30 pm · Filed under Encouragement, Love, Purpose, Relationship, Simplicity, Wisdom, Women's Ministry and tagged: Christianity, Religion and Spirituality

4Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, 5so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

6In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. 7If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. 8If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

9Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. 10Love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. Romans 12:4-10 (NLT)

I think one of the biggest mistakes Christian women often make is trying to help God change another person. This is not exclusive to, but is particularly true for married women. We meet someone who is our opposite in so many ways. We are attracted to them because they have qualities we don’t, but perhaps wish we did. This is just one of those laws of nature, opposites attract. The problem begins after we’ve been with that person for so long that we begin to forget all those great qualities that attracted us to them to begin with; and we start trying to change them to be more like us.

My husband and I are probably a typical example of how this phenomenon works. I am obsessive compulsive about some things, okay about many things. When I first met my husband, JR it amazed me how someone could be so carefree about the simple things in life. He seemed have such freedom to enjoy simple things like a picnic in the park near the water. It was so refreshing to watch how he could fall asleep on the picnic blanket without having any worries about bugs, or other critters crawling up a shirt sleeve or even the birds perched in the trees above the food. While I am super-hyper conscious of bugs and germs, he seems to at times be totally oblivious to them. Well, all the admiration I had for his carefree lifestyle took flight; and reality set in once we got married. His carefree adorable qualities became a huge annoyance and my new life mission was to change him. All my vain attempts to scare him into changing with statistics on the types and varieties of germs were absolutely useless. He was not impressed, and eventually God had to show me that the change needed to happen with me, not JR.

I finally agreed to accept JR with his flawed views about germs and critters. I still sometimes bite my tongue when he does things that no bug fearing person (such as myself) would ever consider. It really wasn’t until I realized how ridiculous it was to try to change anyone to be like me, that I could let go of my ideal image of a perfect husband. More importantly the real change that needed to take place was in my willingness to accept people right where they are, for who they are, the way they are. God showed me that this applies to bugs, germs and anything else. As wonderful as we might think we are, this earth only needs one of each of us. God knew exactly what He was doing when He made each of us uniquely different. As members of the body of Christ we have an authentic role that is assigned by God. We each must allow God to help us flourish in our roles by using our talents, abilities, gifts and skills. Organizing the inside is about change; but that change begins and ends in us, not in the other person.

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