God’s Eyes for Your Spouse

When you look at your spouse, what do you see? I don’t mean hair or eye color, height or weight. I mean, when you consider your spouse, do you see their failures and their shortcomings? Or do you see their successes and strengths? If you’re married to a human, your spouse undoubtedly has both failures and successes on his or her report card. There are also strengths and shortcomings. But I’m not asking about the facts of their report card…I’m asking, “What do you see?”

On September 21^st, Dave Harvey preached from Philippians chapter 1. When he did, he highlighted how Paul had God’s eyes for the Philippian church. It was not that they were without fault. In fact, Paul addresses some of those issues in the letter that followed. It was that Paul remembered the Philippians for their successes rather than their failures. He saw them for their best moments.

Seeing through the eyes of God is not an ability limited to the first century. It can be lived out in the homes of Christian couples all around the world. A husband can choose to acknowledge the failures of his wife while still remembering her according to her successes. A wife can choose to speak about her husband according to his strengths rather than his weaknesses.

The grace and freedom that such an atmosphere creates is incredible. There is no striving for acceptance through performance and function. Applying the gospel resolves the issue of acceptance. It allows failures to be learning opportunities and weaknesses to be windows of humility. It allows successes to be achieved humbly and strengths to be leveraged for others rather than for yourself.

Sounds great, right? Who would not want this to be true of their marriage? No one. Any one in his right mind would want such an environment of grace. So, what keeps us from it?

You’ll have to answer that question. For some people, bitterness sits as the watchman of their minds. It doesn’t let them forget each and every time they’ve been wronged. For others, self-righteousness is the culprit. They use accusation to drown out their own shortcomings. For some others, it is just a lack of knowledge. These people are just doing the best they can and don’t know of any other way.

Whatever the cause, the solution is the same. It is God’s delight to give you his vision of your spouse. As a holy God, He looks at your spouse and sees Christ, even in the face of the massive amount of sin we all commit daily. As forgiven sinners enjoying the eyes of God being directed at us, we can look at our spouse with grace.

When we do so, we see our spouse for his or her successes and strengths. We don’t ignore their failures or weaknesses. We just don’t characterize them by their worst moments. We allow the grace of God shape our vision of them so that we remember them for their best moments.