Principle 3: Manage Expectations And Appreciate Your Differences.

UNCOMMON WISDOM

Pride leads to conflict; those who take advice are wise. Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows over time. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.

—Proverbs 13:10-12

UNCOMMON PRACTICE

Take a few moments to select one of this week’s practices to explore further. The related Adventure Application appears just below each practice. If you’d prefer to come up with a different way of living out that practice this week, feel free to discuss what that might look like.

Seek outside counsel when expectations and differences are too great to work through on your own.

As you consider your marriage today, are you feeling hopeful or helpless? If you need godly guidance, talk about whom you might turn to for direction or help.

Be wise when picking your battles, understanding that your spouse probably doesn’t intend his or her weaknesses to cause you grief.

Keep a careful eye this week on those moments when you and your spouse disagree. Are those issues foundational to your marriage or family? If so, deal with them. Otherwise, accept the fact that you have differences and smile—at least once the moment has passed.

Recognize that God often brings together different types of people to complement each other and bring balance to a family.

What are ways in which the individuals in your family are different? Are you making time to watch an action movie with your husband, if that’s his thing? Is he making time to watch a romantic comedy—or your favorite—with you?

Expect that you will see things differently at times.

This week, be particularly sensitive to the times you and your spouse see things differently, or react to things differently. Jot them down. In a quiet moment later, pray over this list and give thanks to God for those differences.

Engage in activities you both enjoy together, but allow each other to maintain separate interests as well.

What is something that you and your spouse can do together? Does one of you have an interest that has fallen by the wayside because the other isn’t interested? How could you better support each other?

Model appreciation of differences by treating each of your children as an individual with distinct needs at school and interests at home.

Maybe you’ve been trying to get your spouse or child to become someone God didn’t create him or her to be. If so, consider a different approach, remembering that we are each wonderfully and uniquely created by God.

UNCOMMON PRAYER

Take a few minutes to discuss any praises and needs you’d like to bring to God as a couple. Then, in addition to praying about those things together, use one or more of the following prayer prompts to ask God to help manage your expectations and appreciate your differences.

Praise the Father for activities that replenish or reinvigorate you, either as individuals or as a couple. Glorify Him for the different wonders in creation that make each of your hearts soar. Then spend a few minutes thanking the Lord for the differences you appreciate most about each other.

Confess any hurt or bitterness that has crept into your marriage because of unresolved differences of opinion. Ask the Lord to help you understand each other’s hearts.

Ask God to bless your spouse in any particular work or endeavors he or she is involved in.

Petition the Lord to help you encourage your own children or those in your extended family as you see their gifts and interests develop.