Loving Your Differences

I’ve been preaching for nearly three decades, and I’ve seen a number of unforgettable moments. One of the most memorable happened at a youth conference back in 1997. I was the same fiery, passionate preacher I am today—just younger!

My goal was to inspire and to change lives. But on this particular evening, I would be the one to leave changed. I was single at the time, and I won’t lie; I was routinely scoping and hoping—scanning everywhere for my potential wife. That night, after I walked offstage, a lady approached me and said she had a word for me. She didn’t know me or my situation, but what she said was exactly what I needed to hear.

She was smiling, but her tone was serious: “Stop looking for your wife. God is going to send her, and she is going to love everything that is different about you.”

My day job was working as an IT recruiter and a few months after the conversation at that youth conference, the company hired a new recruiter named Irene. She moved into the cubicle a couple over from mine, and the first time I saw her, I knew. I made it my mission to recruit her for life.

Eventually, she agreed to a date, which was incredible. I planned a unique stop at the Baltimore Aquarium. Afterward, we went to dinner, and I asked her sincere questions about her story. Then, after dinner, we wandered around the Baltimore harbor. We walked for hours, and the conversation flowed more naturally with her than with any other person I had ever talked to. We were laughing and singing, sharing stories about our lives. I’m not trying to brag, but I planned and executed the most perfect date in the history of dating.

That night, when I dropped her off, I planted a kiss on her forehead. It was not a real kiss because I wanted to show her that I was for real and pursuing her for the right reasons. Honestly, I felt weightless as I walked back to my car—this was 100 percent the girl I was supposed to marry.

In those early years, we allowed the adrenaline of running a church and raising kids to fuel us. But the more we focused on those roles, the more we neglected the roles of husband and wife, and the chemistry we’d felt in the beginning began to feel like friction . . . something we both resented but desperately wanted to fix.

Differences will eventually cause division—it’s totally natural. But division gets dangerous when we don’t work to reconcile because then the door is left wide open for resentment. In Scripture, James contrasted wisdom and understanding with resentment. He cautioned against allowing bitterness to lead you to being “false to the truth” (James 3:14 ESV).

What we didn’t know during those early years of our marriage is that you can’t connect out of a deficit. The lack of understanding—the void in your relationship—will hinder connection until you confront it and learn to love your differences. Your differences can become your strengths. You can help your spouse navigate areas they lack, but only when you recognize and learn to love each other’s differences.

Respond

• What drew you to your spouse initially? Explain.
• How have the two of you worked through your differences?

Prayer

God, thank you for the gift you have given me in my spouse. We want to honor you by showing you how to reach each other when we feel distant and to appreciate our differences instead of blaming them for driving us apart.