Jesus said,
Why do you see the speck
that is in your brother's eye,
but do not notice the log
that is in your own eye?
Matthew 7:13
ESV
For a short time in college, I had a girlfriend who was in a running feud with her roommate.
The topic was silly.
Except to them.
“Which way,” they battled, “should the toilet paper roll face?”
Silly, right? Except to them.
The gal I dated was practical. “When I’m putting on my make-up and I swipe at the toilet paper roll, I want to be able to quickly grab a few tissues. And if it’s on upside down, it’s not as easy.” Practical argument.
Her roommate based her preference on custom and tradition. Having toilet paper come from under the roll was more elegant. It was “the right way to do it.” She was Canadian. She said it was the way they did it in Canada. I suspect it was mainly the way they did it in mom and dad’s house growing up. But this “right way” of doing things was very important to her.
Do you see the battlefront?
One was arguing from the head. The other was arguing from the heart. And the argument got so heated that they almost “broke up” as roommates!
Finally they came to an uneasy truce. Compromise. “Whoever puts on the new roll,” they decided, “gets to decide which way it goes.” Sounds fair (… until they each started changing the roll a quarter of the way through).
Battle lines.
Sometimes it’s head vs. heart.
Often it’s over silly matters. (Silly, of course, to everyone but you.)
When the other person doesn’t agree with you, the discussion often accelerates past silly and insignificant and becomes pointed and personal. Our beloved seems to be attacking ... not just an idea ... but our identity itself.
In God’s plan, part of the first year of marriage is supposed to be learning to live with a new roommate.
The first year together is supposed to be wonderfully exciting as you explore all kinds of “new” things! And at the very moment that you’re learning to combine two different styles, personalities, opinions, and ways of doing things, that newlywed passion is supposed to keep drawing you back together in this one flesh union.
Indeed, the point of the first year — the way it’s supposed to be — is to learn to live together. And to help the permanence of this new union, God added two blessings …
The first is the marriage covenant itself. It’s a promise before God. It’s a commitment that’s supposed to be “til death do us part.” It’s a holy pledge that insures that each of us is bound to keep working daily at this relationship. Shoving together two lives, two personalities, two family traditions, two ways of doing things brings inherent stress. But because of the marriage covenant, you have the responsibility — and the assurance — that you’ll both keep working at it. This promise before God and to each other is, indeed, solemn responsibility and blessed assurance.
The second blessing designed to help us secure this union is … the sex! God designed sex to be a new, exciting, and added bonus within the married relationship that keeps knitting us together. Our sensuality should regularly reaffirm that the differences between us are not a reason to fight! Rather, the differences are one of the most delightful reasons that we are together! (Indeed, the make-up sex should keep us coming back to one another in incredible joy!)
Let me make a radical claim: The point of the first year of marriage, in learning to live together, is to learn to fight fair!
Over the next several days, I’ll make sense of this claim and teach you, I hope, to use conflict to grow your relationship.
Question: What keeps drawing you back to your beloved (and to your other most important relationships)?
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who puts
toilet paper on
right-side up
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