Special Effects
Theme of the Week: Aiming to Please
Fred Stoeker
Monday, June 3, 2002
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Special Effects
Theme of the Week: Aiming to Please
Monday, June 3
Key Bible Verse: Don't be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on others (Philippians 2:3). Bonus Reading:1 Peter 3:7
When Brenda was a surgical nurse, she was often called out on medical emergencies in the middle of the night. She never rose alone on those wintry nights at 3 a.m., however. I awoke with her, venturing out to warm up her car and scrape her icy windows while she dressed to leave. I returned to my warm bed only when she was safely off.
On the mornings when she had a regular work schedule, I made up her lunch while
she showered, dropping special treats into her brown paper sack. Sometimes when I passed her car in the hospital parking lot, I tucked a love note under her windshield wiper.
Invariably, news of how "special" I treated Brenda reached her coworkers during break time. They acted jealously, saying, "You're so lucky to have such a nice husband!" Brenda smiled and replied, "Thanks, I know."
But inside, she didn't know what to feel because I was also trampling on her in other ways. It wasn't enough to polish my image by making "sacrifices" to burnish my reputation as a "sensitive guy." I needed an entirely new mindset and a wholesale change in motive.
—Fred Stoeker in Every Woman's Desire
My Response: Are my "sacrifices" genuine or done to make me look good?
Thought to Apply: Love … is the slowest growth. No man or woman can really know what love is until they have been married a quarter century
—Mark Twain
Adapted from: Every Woman's Desire (Waterbrook, 2001).
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
May/June 2002,Vol. 5,No. 3
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Father, help me to please You by moving beyond preoccupation with my own needs to meeting those of my wife.
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