Day 7

Love Believes the Best

"Love believes all things, hopes all things." - 1 Corinthians 13:7

In the deep and private corridors of your heart, there are two rooms. They are called the Appreciation Room and the Depreciation Room. On the walls of the Appreciation Room, you have written kind words and phrases describing good attributes of your spouse...honest, intelligent, wonderful cook, beautiful eyes, etc. However, on the walls of the Depreciation Room, you have written things that bother and irritate you about your spouse. These things were placed there out of frustration, hurt feelings and the disappointment of unmet expectations. That room is lined with the weaknesses and failures of your husband or wife. Emotional injuries fester in this room and people fall out of love here. Basically, spending time in the Depreciation Room kills marriages. You may say, "But these things are true!" Yes, but so are the things in the Appreciation Room. Everyone fails and has areas that need growth. This is the sad aspect of being human. We all have sinned. But we have this unfortunate tendency to downplay our own negative attributes while putting our partner's failures under a magnifying glass. Although we tend to spend more time in the Depreciation Room, love chooses not to live there. You must decide to stop running to this room and linger there after every frustrating event in your relationship. It does you no good and drains the joy out of your marriage. Love chooses to believe the best about people. It gives them the benefit of the doubt. And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward. As much as possible, love focuses on the positive. It's time to let love lead your thoughts and your focus. The only reason you should glance in the door of the Depreciation Room is to know how to pray for your spouse.

Today's Dare: Get two sheets of paper. On the first one, spend a few minutes writing out positive things about your spouse. The do the same with the negative things on the second sheet. Place both sheets in a secret place for another day. At some point during the remainder of the day, pick a positive attribute from the first list and thank your spouse for having this characteristic.

"If there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things." -Philippians 4:8