Proverbs 27:17
As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
Keeping your marriage fresh is like keeping a kitchen knife sharp. If you don't sharpen it, it will get dull. However, if you over sharpen or sharpen to forcefully, you will wear your partner down so much that he/ she will no longer take an edge and will be resistant to sharpening. It is best to learn how to consistently and gently hone one another so that you will both always be at your best.
So, why are we so resistant to being sharpened? Because it hurts! Especially before we condition our selves to take correction and re-direction from our spouse. Our pride naturally resists it. I know this personally, because I wanted to look good to Laurel. I saw it as a sign of weakness to take correction from her because I always wanted to be the hero with the answer. I didn't understand that I could actually open myself up to her and that doing so did not make me look weak to her. When, in fact, it made me all the more attractive to her because I showed her that I trusted and respected her by allowing her to speak into my world. I had a distorted “Hollywood” view of what a relationship was supposed to look like and thought that I had to have all the answers all the time in order to impress her, when nothing could have been farther from the truth.
I was born (this is Laurel:) with a need/love of order and beauty. On my Saturdays before we had kids you would find me skimming through the home magazines at Barnes and Noble and making notes about what I was going to do when I arrived home. I loved the pretty pictures of the perfectly organized pantry’s and the beautifully decorated living rooms and thought that if my home could be transformed to look like that I would look like the perfect home-maker. So off I went! I bought every Tupperware product known to man and shelf liners and set out to have a pantry that rivalled one featured in a magazine. And I got pretty close, if I do say so myself! Except for one tiny inconvenience; David did not appreciate that I had created a system of order in the pantry that needed to be adhered to or our pantry would look as ordinary as everyone else’s pantry and I definitely did not want that.
Unfortunately, I tried organizing David as well. I cut and nipped with my words trying to ‘shape’ him into what I thought he should look like and act like in order to be acceptable in certain circles and succeed in business. I sharpened until I was left with a small piece of iron that was so nicked up that it could not cut anything straight and clean anymore.
However, God is so gentle with us always. I can remember when I heard from Him one Sunday in worship “Laurel, I’ve created David to be all of the things you desire him to be. Begin to speak the great things that he is and not what he is not.” WOW. Definitely not what I deserved but I was grateful non the less. I began to bite my tongue more than lash it. And after a few months of doing so, my Iron Man began to stand taller. I had pumped him so full of compliments (not flattery although sometimes he likes that too ;) and love (yes that sometimes translated to quite a few extra trysts) that he became confident. And his confidence was the springboard for changes in his life. He had to have a win before he was ready for change. Just like God does with us, he loves us into change.
