Time Part 1

Sorry friends, Cinderella here has been too lazy to blog. I have good reason. We were preparing for the home study for yesterday which got RESCHEDULED for Wednesday! Yeah, I was a little too bummed to blog yesterday.

HOWEVER, I have fun news. Mr. Incredible wants to start blogging on here too! It is OUR blog, so I encouraged him to go for it! Now he IS an engineer, and is taking this blog thing WAY too seriously, but I think it is adorable. He actually has called it an article, and it will be in like 6 parts or so. Be sure to read it, pass it on to your hubs, and in the end- show him so love with a comment. We all know how it feels to get a comment, and I know he would appreciate your feedback. :)

Without further adieu, Time Part 1, the introduction

“What do you mean I can’t go out with the guys tonight? All you want to do is hang out and spend time together! What about me time?! So what if this is the third weekend in a row to go fishing! I can’t miss this big game and Larry has a new big screen TV! All you want to do is spend time with me and I need time with my friends!” This seems to be the normal situation that plays out in most marital relationships. Arguments get started and weekends get ruined by a simple element called time. You might ask, “What do you mean by time?” Time as I am looking at in this article is how we use the time the Lord has given us in reference to a marriage and time with our wives. So I want you to keep this operational definition in tact as we think about how we use it in regards to our wife.

As a Christian man, I have the blessing to see cultural norms so much differently than what the world says is true. It is amazing what being blessed by God’s grace through Jesus Christ does to a man by completely flipping how a man views the secular and social norms that appear in our current culture. So what is the cultural norm? It has to do with how men spend their time. It seems the normal guy wants to spend the evening doing what he wants to do. On the weekends we want to go play with our toys, watch sports, and go hang out with the guys. Now I want to make this clear, none of things I have listed are bad, evil, wicked activities. These activities have absolutely no moral value whatsoever. However, when any of these activities takes the place of time spent with you wife, then there is a problem. I myself am a big car guy, have my favorite sports teams, and have friends I like to hang out with, but the question is does it interfere with quality time with my wife?

Let me also take it a little deeper, do these things or time consuming activities take time away from quality time with the Lord. Do you find yourself able to quote more about sports statistics or car specifications than Scripture? That has been a convicting thought in my life and hopefully it will be in yours. It has driven me to ask the Lord to ‘discipline me in Your Word’.

The point I am trying to get to here is that if we can’t even be disciplined in our time with God, how can we even give our wife any justice at all? It’s all pure selfishness in how we men like to use our time! In the context of marriage, when we choose our toys, sports, or friends over time with our wife, we are effectively saying, “Honey, I know you want to spend more time with me, but the big game is on TV and it’s more important than you are and I value it more than you” Now I know that can be an extreme, but I want everyone to seriously think about it. I am not saying you can’t enjoy these activities, but I want men to give some weight as to the cost. This is also not something a wife should pound on a man either. I believe, as always, there is a balance somewhere.

What I want to address, as I have given this a lot of thought, is the social norm as compared to what is in the heart of a man who is devoted to Christ. I hope to encourage my fellow brothers in Christ about how important spending time with our wives is to building a strong family and also the body of Christ. I want us to remember what our wives are to us! They are apart of us, they are our best friends, they are our responsibility, they are to be taken care of, and they are key in building the body of Christ for His Glory!

Cinderella's Commentary: just so y'all know, we have never actually had to fight about this. Mr. Incredible said to me the other day when he thought to write this, "in the beginning I wanted to maybe hang out with the guys, but now it is not even a desire. I love being with my best friend all the time, and it is a great feeling knowing how much you desire to spend time with me." He is writing this to other men, from what he has learned from our very close relationship, ie we are attached at the hip and we like it that way. ;) With that being said, I love him so and am so blessed to be his wife!