• My Thoughts on the Righteous Man

    For years, I worried about being a righteous man. I never measured up to the standards set by my church, my family, and my Bible. I constantly felt overwhelmed by all the ways a person should respond with kindness and love and selflessness. I failed miserably.

    For a time, I stopped caring. I surrendered. I accepted the fact that I didn’t measure up, and I quit trying to. These days, I see things a little differently. I don’t try to be a man who is perfect at everything. Now, I try to be a man who excels at one thing. One thing is easier to manage than hundreds.

    For me, that one thing is being a husband. I couldn’t have forseen it before marriage, but satisfying my wife is an fairly life-consuming task. I don’t mean to say that my wife is difficult to please. Far from it. Sometimes I think she is just grateful that I’m not a drunk or violent man. Sometimes I really think she must have set the bar fairly low to be so happy with me.

    Then I realize that for all my faults, I provide her with one of the things her heart needs most, which is. wait for it. loving attention (sorry – the old Doogie Howser dude is getting to me on How I Met Your Mother). That’s right. I give her my attention. I’m not always the best listener; in fact, I really like to hear the sound of my own logic. But I give her the best of my time always. We spend lunch times together. We spend weekends together. I go with her to the grocery store. We curl up on the sofa and watch television together (except when it’s the Dallas Cowboys or Mavericks).

    There are times when I have the opportunity to hang out with a friend or go out by myself. That’s fine. I enjoy it. But as we wrap up our third year of marriage, I am blessed to enjoy spending so much time with this incredible woman. The truth is that she is my best friend. I enjoy her company. It’s actually fun to hang out with her!

    My goal in all of this is to establish within her a deep revelation of my love and desire for her. I want her to be confident in my affection. She will not “think” that I love her or “hope” that I love her. She will know it. She will know it more than she will know anything else.

    That is my one thing. I may or may not be a righteous man in any other man’s eyes, but I believe that a loving, nurturing husband is a righteous man.