Serving your spouse while on vacation

You’re sure that you are right and your spouse is wrong, while your spouse is equally convinced of the opposite – a typical marital standoff. Has it ever occurred to you that, in one sense, you both could be right and you both could be wrong?

That’s the situation my wife and I faced on a recent vacation. It had been more than 18 months since I’d taken two weeks off from work. I was exhausted from a heavy travel schedule and looking forward to some quiet time.

My wife walked off the plane with a different agenda: We were in a new place, and we only had 15 days to explore every corner and drive down every road. On our second full day, to get us off to a good start, she suggested a "few little stops." Twelve hours later, we arrived back at our condo, and my wife started talking about other things we could do in the remaining 13 days.

"I can’t afford to leave this place more exhausted than when I got here," I protested.

"It sounds like a lot to you, but think of all the things I’m already leaving out," my wife answered. My wife doesn’t travel nearly as much as I do, so our vacation was a rare chance for her to see and experience new things.

Humility for us both

So who was right?

Both of us. I had a legitimate need for relaxation, and my wife had a legitimate desire for exploration.

So who was wrong?

Both of us, of course. My wife should have known I needed more rest; I shouldn’t have acted as though my need for rest was more important than our need to spend fun time together.

So how do you resolve something that can be looked at from either angle?

The answer is simple: humility.

Quarrelling in paradise

Marriage books often dispense advice on how to resolve conflict, which usually involves reaching a compromise. But there is a deeper issue at stake – selfish desires.

James, the brother of Jesus, put it plainly: "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it" (James 4:1-2).

My wife and I both had needs, and it just so happened that our needs were in conflict. As long as I assumed my needs were more important, and as long as my wife acted as if her desires were more important, we’d never reach a place of peace.

We spent the first three days in "paradise" quarrelling, compromising and uneasily hammering out a loose agreement. Neither of us was happy with the result; I didn’t get near the amount of rest I was hoping for, and she didn’t get to see half the places on her wish list.

God’s agenda

Maybe the purpose of this vacation wasn’t about my getting a certain amount of rest and my wife getting a certain amount of excitement. Maybe God’s agenda was to confront the selfishness that rules our hearts.

God may not have been as concerned with what my wife and I deemed most important; He may well have been far more interested in both of us being shaped into the image of Christ: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 2:3-5).

Let go, and let God

It’s precisely because I so desperately wanted rest that I needed to be challenged not to make my wants the determining factor of how we would spend our time. And it’s precisely because Lisa was eager to do so much that the vacation afforded her a powerful example of learning to put someone else first.

If we don’t see self-serving attitudes as our greatest spiritual enemy and Christ-likeness as our ultimate goal, we’ll get lost in the give-and-take of personal desires. That will spawn nothing but resentment, frustration and alienation.

Thankfully, my wife and I were able to set aside our own desires and allow God to use a seemingly no-win situation to help us become more mature. In this sense, with neither of us getting what we wanted, both of us "won." God used a common event in life to accomplish His eternal purposes.