His love is kind

Day 2...Kindness

Today's dare: In addition to saying nothing negative to your spouse again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

Kindness is kind of generic.  People are normally kind to others, I've never met anyone who was just plain mean to me, but as relationships grow and change sometimes we forget to be kind.  People are always on their best behavior when we are first getting to know them.  I once read that the "love" feeling that we have when we first meet someone starts to wear off after 2 to 3 years and during that time we are motivated to be kind to the other person, but what happens after that feeling goes away.

Day 2 breaks down kindness into 4 specific areas; Gentleness, Helpfulness, Willingness and Initiative.  Gentleness is about how you speak to your other half, ”Do you speak truth in love or in harshness?"  Helpfulness says, "Are you meeting the needs of the moment?" Willingness speaks to cooperation and flexibility.  Initiative says, "When acting from kindness, you see the need, then make your move.  First."

Again it boils down to motivation, because if we didn't have motivation we would never do anything without being prompted and that would certainly keep us from doing anything first. Motivation gets harder as relationships grow.  I know that now that I am at my goal weight, it can be very difficult to get motivated to exercise because even though I would like to tone up a little more, I am perfectly happy with what I look like. Same with relationships, as you settle into a relationship, you become contented with the way things are and your motivation starts to slip, but as motivation to be kind fades away your contentedness may fade as well.

Someone once told me,  "That falling out of love is much easier than staying in love." And as I thought about that I started to realize that was absolutely true.  It's all about motivation but where does the motivation come from?   

It's easy to stay motivated when your needs are met by the other person, but as your motivation starts to disappear it's only natural that your partners does as well.  I always find it interesting, when talking to people about their relationships, how they don't see the correlation between their actions and the actions of their significant other, but nevertheless we are always surprised when our relationships change or end.

In another book on relationships I read the author said something like this; Remember the golden rule still obtains to dating or marriage relationships.  He also said, "When faced with a difficult situation, remember to look past your partner and see His Son standing behind them."

So whether you’re dating or married, remember that His Son is standing right behind your significant other.  Our motivation comes from doing what He would want us to do, not because we will get anything in return from our partner.