Renewing Our Minds
This last Christmas, I wanted to be extremely thoughtful with the gift I got my wife. I wanted to get her a new Bible that was personalized to the style of her liking. I did not want to personalize it for any reason other than for her to know that I notice her, much like a best friend might know you. This may not seem like much, but I used to not notice her or even love her as a husband should love his bride. I exercised more of a lordship instead of by example (1 peter 5:3). So, I spent hours looking and calling around trying to find the perfect Bible that hit all the personalized areas (i.e., color, name imprinted on it, cross references, etc..) that I felt she would like.
During this wonderful adventure, I started to get frustrated because I realized I did not know her as well as I thought I did. I started second guessing myself and almost did not go through with it because of major anxiety. Going out shopping and trying to make decisions like this usually result in high anxiety and many times anxiety attacks. But after deciding to just do my best, I did all that I could to make it perfect. I even wrote her a loving letter in the first couple blank pages of the Bible. It took almost all I had to contain my excitement.
When Christmas morning came around and it was her turn to open my gift, I handed it to her with the biggest hopes to bring her joy. She opened the gift and began to read what I had written. Part of what I wrote was expressing how I tried to get the Bible to her perfect liking. As she was reading, I saw her shed some tears and I went away thinking I nailed it.
What makes this story take a turn, is a couple weeks after Christmas I asked her how well I did at knowing all her Bible preferences. Her response to me was this, “It looks like a grandpa Bible” she said with a smile. She also shared that I got all her preferences wrong, except the most important, the version. At least I got the most important one right. But this caused me to raise the question, “How in the world could my wife not only feel so much love where she shed tears, but also not say anything about how wrong I was?” She really loves it, she said. She also expressed that even if the cover starts breaking, she will rebind it with the same one. During church service, I got to see a joyful smile on her face as she brought it out during church to search the scriptures. As hard as this can be to believe, I know she truly feels this way. But how is that possible? The only way we can do this is by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2).
Renewing our mind this way can bring up questions like, “how can I do this practically”, or” I feel like I am trying to force myself to believe something that I really don’t agree with?” These are valid questions, especially when all your feelings and thoughts could be the exact opposite of what the heart of the issue is? The idea is to look with your spiritual eyes to identify the core of what is going on, then respond in a manner that is pleasing to the Lord. But why do we need to use our spiritual eyes? We do this because looking at life through flesh eyes (our heart and feelings) will only result in a misdiagnosis of the problem and cause confusion and division. Like my wife could have done if she used her worldly eyes. She very easily could have asked me how I didn’t even know her after 11 years, or in a very extreme level think she made the wrong husband choice by marring me. I share this because these are real feelings the devil can throw at us. If we’re not careful, we will believe the lie (twisted truth) which will only result in stress, division, and confusion.
I am pleased to say my wife chose to renew her mind and not give place to the lies that could have run through her mind. Instead, she chose to believe the truth and the best in me by recognizing all the time and effort I put into her gift (1 Corinthians 13:7). In return, God worked in her life, and she was able to respond in a way that was pleasing to the Lord. This is hard to do and will take a lot of practice, patience, humility, and having more care for others then for yourself (Philippians 2:3). If you truly want to love your family and others the way Christ intended, renewing your mind daily in this way is a must. This can also be applied to any circumstance you face. But most importantly, it honors God when we can live this way, because we are loving our neighbor as ourselves. (Matthew 12:31).
She likes lighter colors over dark, silver over gold, has never preferred thumb tabs and doesn’t care if her name is on it. This is the Bible I chose for her.
