Weekly Impressions - Perspective Shift

One of my greatest enemies - in my marriage and otherwise - is my selfishness.  It most often surfaces in my frustration; I have had to ask my husband for forgiveness a few times this past week.  I realize, too, that this is a result of letting my focus stray from God to settle on myself.

For instance, dinner was prepared a bit late a couple nights ago, and it was getting past the little man’s bedtime.  He was getting a bit fussy, too - definitely ready to go to bed.  In my mind, I knew that dinner would be ready soon, and that little man should probably be down by that time.  We could wait until after dinner (little man had already eaten his own dinner), otherwise someone would have to give him his milk during dinner.  My mom-in-law set dinner on the table, and sure enough, my husband says, “Time to put him down!”

I did not want to put him down and not only eat a cold dinner afterward, but also miss everyone’s company.  My husband said he wasn’t hungry, though, and offered to put him down.  At least that only meant missing my husband’s company, though I wasn’t stoked about that, either.  However, little man decided that he was still hungry, and asked for some food.  So we all sat down to dinner (which was nice, really).  Little man soon decided he was done, though, and picked up whining where he had left off earlier.  My husband, in the meantime, had begun eating a piece of pizza, which left little man whining in his seat.

I didn’t know what to do - if my husband now wanted me to put him down, or if I should let little man out of the chair to run around while we finished eating, or if my husband was going to handle it any second.  I waited for some sort of queue from my husband, but finally my frustration began to show.  

Now this may not sound very bad on my part, and may even sound justified.  However, when I looked at it in view of God’s perspective rather than how the world looks at it, I realized that my focus was not on God, or even on others - it was on myself.  Why was I frustrated?  Because things weren’t being dealt with as I thought they should be.  As if that even mattered in light of following God’s will.  Wanting to run things my own way was not a portrayal of God.

It was a good thing to try to submit to my husband in waiting for a queue, but I could have let him in on where I was, too.  I could have asked.  I also could have suggested to my husband ahead of time that we might want to plan ahead and put the little man down before dinner, instead of grumbling to myself that I had to submit to his poor planning.  I had a wrong view of submission, too.

I am thankful that the Lord pointed out my incorrect perspective to me.  It is much better to be able to see the problem and attempt to deal with it better in the future, than to continue living in my grumbling selfishness.  I thank the Lord that He loves me enough to point out my mistakes.  Has He pointed out a perspective shift to you recently?