Manipulation…?

Groggy, I scowled.

The getting ready sounds of my husband filled my ears at 5:30am today.

My addiction to caffeine is but one of the symptoms of my official, “not a morning person” status.

And when my kids were little, the firecracker-morning-person-child-I-somehow-gave-birth-to heard at 5:30am at age five, “Look, I love you. A lot. But Mommy needs two cups of coffee and about an hour and a half of silence first thing in the morning before I can be a good mommy. I promise to play with you as soon as I get there.”

And I did.

God meets me at my absolute WORST each morning. And somehow, that hour turns me into someone who can moderately tolerate the existence of others and interact with them without committing a felony.

So this morning, while still lamely recovering from six hours of jet lag, I had no intentions of getting up when the energizer bunny arose for work. I wanted desperately (SERIOUSLY DESPERATELY) to go back to sleep.

And yet, God was there.

And the night before, when my man came home from work, full of compliments for the kids who cleaned the garage and a dinner of leftovers, and thanked us for all we did during the day, I thanked him for working his hinny off for us so we could be together and do these things.

And this morning, God reminded me of this.

I knew it was Him, because clarity of thought for me requires a minimum of two shots of espresso on a good day.

And so I smiled, and said, “Thanks for going to work today.”

He smiled back.

What’s interesting about this is that I had stopped thanking him for going to work several years ago.

You might wonder why I stopped when this is a “Respect 101” type thing to be doing.

When I started learning how to communicate respect to my husband, he didn’t believe me. “You’re just saying that because of God,” he’d say, doubting my words.

I stuck with it for a while, but for some reason, the comment that seemed to bug him most was, “Thanks for going to work today.”

So I stopped saying it.

And today, God prompted me to say it once again.

For some reason, it was received.

Funny how God always knows the best timing.

Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” James 4:3 says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Even though I tried very hard to respect my husband simply because I thought I wanted to obey God’s Word, a huge part of me wanted also to change him and improve my marriage.

And while I still know I would enjoy greater intimacy with my husband, I also know God better, so I have a healthy fear of Him, and an awe of Him, and deeply yearn to obey Him, above ALL other things – even my own desires.

Dare you today to join us on this journey – double dog dare you to invite God into your circumstances to search your heart and reveal your own sin. He forgives – and He can change you, and as a result, change your marriage.

Triple dog dare you to obey Him in the small things – He who can be trusted with little can be trusted with much (Luke 16:10) – you won’t get the “big” until you develop tenacity and perseverance and mature faith in the small.

Small, like, “Thank you for going to work today.”

Glad you are here! Hope you are subscribed – I’m going to be blogging just twice a week in an effort to regain life balance and enjoy the summer with my kids.

Love to you,

~Nina

How about you? What “A-Ha!” do you have from today?