I've been thinking about it lately. How come we give the best of ourselves to strangers and the least of ourselves to our family? We get so comfortable with our spouse and our kids that our defenses come down and our "true" selves come out. We yell at each other, we whine and complain, we gossip, and we are more selfish. But to that lady at Target who rings up our order we give a warm smile and cheerful "how are you today?"
I'm not saying we should be rude to the Target lady and nice to our family. There should just be more of a balance. We should be offering up our kindness and love and compassion to the one's in our home as well as the one's we encounter outside our home.
Philipians 4:8 gives a good guideline on how we should act towards our family. It says " Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things."
Imagine a home filled with truth, nobility, justness, purity, love, goodness and praise! It is definitely worth trying to attain to for the benefit of ourselves and our family.
Oh my... you are not alone! My husband has totally busted me... we've been in a heated moment (more than once) where I'm being harsh and angry and then the phone rings and it's a friend and my tone immediately changes to sweet as sugar. He says obviously you "can" control your self! Ugh! But he's right. He's also said... you would never speak this way to a friend and he's right about that too. This too is another reason why we desperately need God all the time. Great post... super cute blog too!!
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Heidi
Ouch! Ok, you are only allowed to post things that make me feel good. lol You are so right though. We are to be self-controlled. We need God's constant help to live in a way that is pleasing to Him.
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