“It’s better to live alone in the corner of an attic than with a quarrelsome wife in a lovely home.” Proverbs 25:24 NLT
What do Juan Manuel Santos, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liu Xiaobo, Wangari Maathai, Kofi Annan all have in common? Yes they were all Nobel Peace Prize winners.
An award given each year to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. So what else do these individuals have in common?
They are just a few of the winners over the years that have won a Nobel Peace Prize yet have also been divorced. I heard on the radio recently someone mention this and it caught my attention. It requires a lot of same skills to negotiate international peace as it does to be in a personal relationship, so how could they succeed at one and fail at the other?
There is no easy answer and I’m not here to critique or criticize anyone named in this article. I’m simply using their experience as an opening to have this discussion with you. All I know from what I’ve learned from my life to date is the more you have yor identity sorted the healthier life choices you will make.
A question I had to ask myself many times after my accident was, Who am I?
With so much of our lives revolving around our career and/or closest relationships with both of these in taters who was I?
Though I would never want to go sliding down the highway ever again and definitely don’t want to ever deal with the pain of the years that followed. I am thankful however for the growth I was able to achieve during my recovery.
Relationships can still be tricky and my initial proverbs quote is equally applicable regardless of the make up of the people you share a roof with. The only answer I have as to how can one truly lay down ones life for another and follow in the ultimate example Jesus gave us, is the more ones relationship improves with him the more it can with others.
All the time off I had allowed me to get closer to him like never before. Equally I could have used that time to get further away. Everything you do in life is a choice. How you spend your time is a choice. If you are working to much to have time for your partner you have the power over the lifestyle you lead that requires that level of support. You can also invest in your own learning and teach yourself about the things you didn’t learn in school about how to fund your life.
The more you see yourself the way God does the more you will be able to see others through his eyes rather than your own.
Would you like to live a life of being able to love without being emotionally abused? Imagine what you could achieve in life if it was impossible to be offended?
These may seem like impossible or lofty goals but how different could the rest of the decade be if you dedicated yourself afresh for the rest of this year in becoming free.
How much more could you give someone else if you required nothing from them. We’ve been indoctrinated since birth that life’s goal was to find out other half. What would the divorce rate be if we were whole before joining our lives with another?
Imagine the difference we could have in the world if our normal was function rather than dysfunction. Let me leave you this month with this short series I came across last year. The more you get to know a God of relationship rather than a God of rules the better your life will be.
Next Month: Send me a message and let me know what you would like me to write on.