Self-centeredness, enemy's foothold

Today, I am celebrating my three weeks of being a wife and a helpmate to my husband (Joshua) not just in physical level but in the aspect of emotional, intellectual and spiritual relationship.  Both of us are still on the academy of adjustment and learning mostly in meeting each others needs and differences in characters.

I remember one morning,  I became upset towards Joshua because I was waiting for him to greet me "good morning" with a sweet smile on his face but I didnt get what I was expecting him to say with me.  Instead he stood up from bed and said, "Baby (his word of endearment to me) I will just have a shower."  But he was forgetting something, something that for me must be said first before him doing anything else.  My emotions was stirred and I was about to burst out just because of him not meeting my expectations.  My initial reaction was, "you don't even say good morning to me" not even told me you love me." then I turned my back from him and face the wall.   Seeing this reaction cause my husband to pet me and remind me about the Proverbs 31:12 verse ( he knows that I desire to apply that verse into action). 

I may seem childish and immature but in my mind there was a battle going on.  I felt so bad and felt like I was being ignored.  I am not much of a romantic person but on my own perspective we just got married.  Where is the sweetness?  On his part, his focus was doing his morning routine.  I can't even beat him in taking a morning shower so early. 

In times like this,  if I choose to act according to my flesh I will be mad and ignored my husband but it will not cause us good.  Reverence to God is what I need to practice which is to imitate what Proverbs 31:12 woman modeled which says, she does him good and not evil all the days of her life which constantly remind me about one of the characters of being a good wife.  We ended up cuddling after cease fire.

But when we were walking to the town to Subway store for our breakfast, another episode happened.  He was about to cross the road without holding my hand and these made me recalled what happened earlier and made me tell him what I was feeling inside.  

I told this to him, "do I always need to tell you to please greet me good morning or give me a hug in the morning for you to do it? " in a dramatic tone of voice followed by this heartfelt words, "do I always need to ask you to hold my hand when we are walking in the road?".  He smiled and looked at me and said,  "sorry I have only been married a week.  I was used to living alone for a matter of 29 years."  With a gentle tone of voice.

When I heard that line, I laughed and told him, "I will save that into my mind volt box and archive it when if its needed."  We ended out laughing together.  

One thing that I discovered about my husband as time goes by, he is not a man of flowery words.  He even said it in the song he composed for me which entitled "Lady Bug".  A part of the lyrics he wrote says, "words and feeling do not so much define my meaning". 

I praise God for opportunity like this though it may seem not good at the first glance but through this the intention of my heart was being exposed.  There was a spot of self- centeredness and that is a sin.  Focusing only on my own interest and expectations became a foothold of the enemy in my heart.  Being self-centered doesn't manifest the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  The truth is, being self-centered is an evil and wrong desires of the flesh.  It opposed denying myself daily and be a self-giving without expecting anything in return knowing that God first loved me and perfectly modeled a selfless love by giving His son Jesus Christ and died for my sins.

When I was reading the commentary in the passage Genesis 2:18  which says, "The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.”  It made clear to me that I am designed as my husband helper.  I must be the one to help him to be out of his self-centeredness and not me practicing my own self-centeredness and this is not healthy for it might cause me to hurt my husband instead of helping him.  

I am thankful to God for the protection and for exposing the devil's foothold on me.  I need to be on guard daily against the enemy's not to lured me out of the purpose as a wife to Joshua as God designed me to be.

I remember what my husband and I learned from our Christian couple friends who are been married for 53 years.  The husband told us, "A lot of people say marriage is a 50/50 partnership.  But he said he disagree, its a 100/100 that shall be given."

I will end this with what Joshua and I learned from our pre-marital seminar, "The principle of marriage relationship must be built like a triangle where God is in the center and the husband and wife are the two base points.  The closest the relationship husband and wife goes to God the closest relationship they become to each other."