Prior to getting married, I thought that reciprocity in relationships was a Christian thing and that married couples had the right to demand equal rights from their spouses.
If you washed the car, your spouse should mop the floors. If you make this much money and your spouse doesn't, you're entitled to more of that money. If you give your spouse a massage, your spouse should give you one too.
My relationship with my wife is far from that today. It's not that she doesn't serve or reciprocate my needs. It's that I don't ask for it or expect it of her. In fact, it often comes to a point where I don't care if she reciprocates my efforts and I don't think my wife Ces does either.
How do you get to that point where you don't start sucking each other dry in a marriage? For me it started with a life-changing experience that happened in a condominium unit kitchen.
I was going through school ministry in a different city for a few months and had brought my family with me. Ces was in between jobs at that time and so was focused on taking care of our daughter. I was working on church communications remotely, running a business and going to school, all on a full-time basis.
One night, I got home from school completely exhausted and was greeted by a mountain of dishes in our kitchen sink while my wife was on the bed comfortably going through her social media accounts. As she did that, she suddenly asked me a question that was the last thing I want to hear, "Can you do the dishes tonight?"
You can just imagine the terrible entitled thoughts that raced through my head as I grabbed the sponge and started scrubbing in a way that would purify even the most sinful hearts. However, as I was halfway through those dishes, the Holy Spirit whispered in my ear and asked me: "What's bothering you?"
It wasn't long until I was giving God a little bit of that attitude, but as I conversed with God some more, I realized something. I was upset not because my wife wasn't being fair, but because I was putting too much of my satisfaction with the idea of reciprocity.
All of a sudden, serving my wife who had painstakingly bought groceries, done the laundry, fixed our condo unit, taken care of our daughter and readied my things for school became such a terrible idea because I was exhausted from "sitting in a classroom."
Then I was reminded by the Holy Spirit of how many days I had failed to spend time with Him. I had to repent at that time of the entitlement that I had allowed to brew in my heart. It was then that I realized that marriage wasn't about meeting each other's needs, but by being so filled with God's love and satisfaction that it overflows to everyone around you -- including your spouse.
Philippians 2:5-7 says, "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."
We serve our husbands and wives, not because they serve us back, but because God has served, satisfied and refreshed us in an overflowing manner that we can now kill entitlement and serve our spouses.
