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Get Out of Jail Free

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Here’s a question for you: do you ever connect two or more thoughts or events that are completely unrelated? When we do that we make false conclusions which frustrate us and the people around us.

Andy had a rough day last week. His boss scolded him for a project that was behind schedule. Worst of all, it wasn’t completely his fault. The next day he was assigned a corner desk without a window. He connected that to the scolding and concluded that the move was a punishment. That created ill will towards his boss and envy for the employee who got the window.

Actually, Andy had a choice. He could either believe the two incidents were unrelated, or make a wrong connection. He chose to assume that the reprimand and the move were connected. He came to work everyday with a cloud over his head, ready to add one more false assumption to the chain.

The truth is that there was no connection between the reprimand and the move. Had he bothered to ask he would have discovered that they moved him to another desk to make room for an employee who had been in an accident and was on crutches. It was only temporary.

You’re in the Jailhouse Now

Mark comes home from work. He’s tired, so he doesn’t greet his wife, Sally, with much enthusiasm. That morning she awoke late, causing more tension than usual in their morning routine. Sally makes a connection between those two separate incidents. Let’s visit Sally’s brain on that day.

“Mark was irritated because I woke up late this morning. Mark doesn’t look happy now. He must still be mad about this morning. In fact, he’s probably still mad about that time last week with his mother.

“Who is he to be mad? He’s not perfect! He makes mistakes, but I guess I make the biggest ones. In fact, I’m always the problem. Why did wonderful Mark have to ruin his life by marrying stupid me? He thinks I’m stupid! I’ll fix him. And his mother. She’s the one who makes me look bad. She has never thought I am good enough for her darling boy . . .”

On it goes. Turn after turn, Sally winds her way into a labyrinth of confused feelings. A stone cold silence grips her.

The truth is, Mark had forgotten all about that morning. He wasn’t mad at Sally. In fact, he was a little mad at himself for being so grumpy when he came home. Now they have a problem. Sally’s chained in the dungeon and blames Mark for putting her there. Mark is upset because she blames him. There’s a long cold night ahead for these two lovebirds unless they can find a way to break the chain of wrong connections.

Catch a bird and put it in a cage. Now try to reach in and take the bird out. That bird will resist, fight, peck, bounce off the wires— anything but let you remove it from the cage. So, if Mark attempts to reason with Sally she might get even madder.

Or, he could ignore her. “She put herself in the dungeon, so she can get herself out!”he might think. And what about Sally? She’s pouting in her cold, dark dungeon cell. She’s waiting for Mark to make a move, to attempt to rescue her. Yet she’s still mad at him. Is there any way for Sally to get out of jail free?

Has Anybody Seen My Key?

It’s better to not make the wrong connection in the first place, but what do you do if you already have? At the core of every wrong connection is a false assumption. Sally could have asked Mark if something was troubling him, or she could have assumed everything was fine. Either one would have kept her out of jail. Now the only way out is to admit what she has done, forgive herself, and ask Mark to forgive her. Doesn’t seem too hard, does it?

The strange thing about dungeons like Sally’s is that they aren’t really locked. The key is on the inside, with the prisoner. But if making wrong connections gets us into jail, pride keeps us there. We feel foolish for causing so much trouble over nothing. We don’t like feeling foolish, so we never reach for the key.

What is the key? Humility. Such an archaic sounding word in this age of self-assertion. When was the last time you saw an article on the values of humility in any secular magazine? But until we humble ourselves we remain prisoners of our own faulty connections. A whole world of love and joy is waiting for us outside. All we have to do is open the door and walk out.

Think, Act, Pray

1. In addition to chaining unrelated events together, Sally complicated the problem in other ways. Look at the paragraph where I recorded her thoughts. See if you can find at least one statement she made for each of the following:

  • Shifting The Blame
  • Unforgiveness
  • Fault-finding
  • Low self-esteem
  • Expanding the sphere of the conflict

2. Think of a question Sally could have asked her husband that would have kept her out of jail.

The Thoughtful Lover

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Behold, the sunny days of courtship! The man calls or tests several times a day. He opens doors for her, tries to be on time, and takes the long way to take her home each night. In short, he does everything to heap attention on her and make her feel desired and valued.

She takes special care to look nice for him, maybe cooks a special meal, and does everything she can to show that she likes his attention. Eventually all that thoughtfulness leads to a proposal, an acceptance, and marriage. Let the lifelong joys begin!

Over the years this couple begins acting very differently. In a hundred little ways they stop living as though they matter to one another. Without thoughtfulness, they live in separate worlds, only touching each other’s lives when necessary. In some cases they actually avoid each other. Such carelessness is dangerous to any marriage.

Considerate and Aware

Two words help us understand thoughtfulness: consideration and awareness.

Consideration means thinking about how your actions will affect your husband or wife. To use some simple examples, if you leave your soiled clothes scattered around the room, who will pick them up? If you are always late waking up, how will that affect your spouse and your children?

Awareness means looking for ways to make life as easy as possible for your marriage partner. Aware spouses watch for ways to help each other, even little ways. Helpfulness becomes their habit.

It’s very human to become careless, to think about our self, but not about our spouse. But when Jesus makes us new people he puts his life in us. That new life makes us look at others in a new way. Then we want the best for each other, not just for ourselves. “Don’t think only about your own affairs,” Paul says, “but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing. ” (Philippians 2:4, NLT)

Why do we become thoughtless? Consider these two common reasons:

Unresolved anger and unforgiveness

You know the story. Your husband or wife makes you mad. You don’t say anything about it, but you start sending signals. How? You act like your spouse doesn’t matter to you anymore. In a score of little ways, you signal your displeasure. By ignoring and isolating your husband or wife you are trying to punish him or her.

Life gets crazy!

Sure it does, but thoughtfulness proves that we haven’t lost touch with the importance and reality of our marriage. Wise spouses don’t let busyness cause carelessness. Instead they look for ways to make life easier for each other, and they think about how their choices and actions will affect the rest of their family members.

Flowers or Chores?

American children’s entertainer Bob Keeshan said, “Attention is like a daily bouquet of love.” He’s right, to a degree. But thoughtfulness is much more practical than a bouquet of flowers. (Not that flowers are a bad idea, guys!) Sometimes a man who buys flowers uses them as a cover-up for neglecting practical expressions of thoughtfulness. Ask any woman whether she would rather have a husband who buys her flowers or a husband who picks up his dirty laundry, and she will say, “Why should I have to choose? Flowers touch my soul one way, but a man who thinks enough of me to make life easier for me really gets to my heart.”

There is much discussion about different love languages. I guess we all have our own way of understanding if someone loves us. For some it is words; for others it is actions. Still others feel loved through physical touch.

Let me propose something radical to you. Suppose God is great enough to make it possible for us to express love in many ways, not just one or two? If he is that great, then he can help us express and experience the fulfillment of being lovers in many different ways. You can be the lover your spouse needs..

Think, Act, Pray

  • If you have lapsed into carelessness, you might need a little booster to activate yourselves. Here’s a way for you to recover that thoughtfulness that you may have lost: ask your spouse what you could do to make life easier for him or her.
  • Take a few moments, today, to ask that question of each other. When responding, use this statement: “It would help me if you would. . ” The great thing is that this statement is a request, not a demand. It leaves room for a genuinely thoughtful response. Make your requests reasonable. Unreasonable requests just cause more frustration.