A couple I know had been married only a week of two when the wife went out shopping. The husband wondered what he might do for her and show her how much he loved her. A brilliant plan came to mind. He got down on hands and knees and scrubbed the kitchen floor. It was a demeaning task in his opinion, and he felt exceedingly humble while performing it. How amazed [his wife] would be! He waited in eager anticipation of her return, thinking how blessed it is to give.
She drove in the driveway, breezed into the kitchen, set the grocery bags on the counter, and glanced at the floor. "Oh--the floor's clean. Thank you, honey!" was all she said and went about putting things away.
...He went into a three-day funk. He was hurt; he was insulted; he was not properly appreciated; and the blessing of giving drained out in an instant because he had not received the kind of thanks he had expected.
[She] had no idea what the trouble was. What she did not know was that her husband had never heard of a man's doing such a thing as scrubbing the floor for his wife, especially voluntarily, having thought of it all by himself. What he did not know was that in his wife's family, no woman ever did the job. Her father considered it a man's job and did it as a matter of course.
That young husband took the lesson to heart. He now believes that it would be wise for every Christian to post as his motto the lesson Jesus taught: "We are servants and deserve no credit; we have only done our duty."(in Discipline: The Glad Surrender, p. 31 by Elisabeth Elliot. 1982. Revell: Grand Rapids, Michigan.)
Disclaimer: Now, don't be too hard on the husband (if that's your tendency)... this actually reminds me to blog later on the whole concept of dealing with unmet expectations, which I realized is a bigger deal than I thought in the context of living and working on the field. =)
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