Morning Coffee and Sluggardness

My husband is always an early bird.  He gets up from bed earlier, does stretching and push ups, and after it, he takes a shower.  His morning wouldn't be complete without sipping a hot and freshly brewed cup (or 2) of coffee.  While me, I am an exactly the opposite of him.  I am a sleep lover.  Before getting up, I love to cushion myself inside the blanket and do the fetus position.  Its like a warming up for me.  So whenever his body clock is set for up, he will automatically eject himself from the bed after he greet me, "Good morning," with those I love you words followed by "would you like to fix me coffee?", of course I love too though it was challenging for my body to do something so early in a cold weather rather than to stay in  bed.  
In tolerating myself, I developed a delaying tactic which all the while I thought he was not aware but he said he always knew (LOL).  Whenever I sense that he is about to get up, I will immediately wrapped my hands around him and asked him to stay in bed for a few minutes and another 5 minutes and more.  It works!  In the first few months he always granted my request.  But now, he is becoming more firm in his words.  Whenever he needs to get up from bed, he will do it.  No more bargaining.  No more negotiation. 

One morning, Joshua woke up so early and asked me if I wanted to make a cup of coffee for him.  I responded saying, "yes in a minute" but in my mind, "if you only knew I still wanted to sleep."  He told me he can make his own coffee and no need for me to get up but I insisted that I can do it for him.  He bounced on up to the bathroom and had his shower.  I was thinking, it will took 10 minutes for him to finished his shower so I stayed 5 minutes more in bed and by the time he got out, a brewing coffee was waiting for him. 

In a glance there is no big deal, because I still made him a coffee.  But if there was an instrument attached in the kitchen wall to measure and check my heart intention in performing that action, it might reflect that it wasn't pure with a capital letters for instead of doing it out of joy, it's becoming an obligation and a task to do.  Or in a simple words, just doing to finish it!  A repetitive daily task.
  

My husband and his favorite blue coffee mug

I know that attitude of mine is not a healthy ingredient towards our marriage.  If I justify myself, its just a little thing no harm done but actually its a blemish that if not exposed to light has a tendency to become corruptible.      

Acts of Service is one form of Joshua's love language which I mentioned in the article  "Give in Love Language".  In simply serving him even in small thing I can show my love for him but being submissive and willingly following his instruction without making him wait is a prime thing that I need to put into practice because its acknowledging his leadership in Christ in our marriage.  It doesn't mean that I need to be a doormat and Joshua being an alpha but through submission to his leadership I will honor Christ by following his example.  Also in doing it I will encourage my husband to be strong in his leadership by taking his words seriously and prioritizing his needs through modeling it in our marriage and practicing it at home.   

Remembering this scripture from Ephesians 5:22-24 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.

Doing a family devotions and praying together helped us to confessed and repent from our sins.  Our Christ-Centered Family Devotions provided free online by Christ Commission Fellowship which has a topic of "The Sluggard and the Diligent" helped us to evaluate in which area of our lives we are becoming sluggard that affecting our marriage and in which we need to be diligent.  By doing this we pin point in which area we need to be diligent.  On Joshua's part, he confessed that he needs to be diligent in the cleaning area mostly in picking of after himself and not being sloppy, to be diligent in cleaning up his mess.  While me, I confessed that I need to be diligent in getting up early and not sleep so late.  We concluded that both of us are being called to be more diligent and that we need each others help for us to change our these things.  

Recently taken Photo

                                                Proverbs 13:4 (KJV)

⁴ The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.