Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. II Corinthians 5:17
In his book Teaching the Elephant to Dance, James Belasco describes how trainers shackle young elephants with heavy chains to deeply embedded stakes. In that way the elephant learns to stay in its place.
Older, powerful elephants never try to leave—even though they have the strength to pull the stake and walk away. Their conditioning has limited their movements. With only a small metal bracelet around their foot attached to nothing, they stand in place.
The stakes are actually gone!
It’s a story you’ve probably heard before, but, like the powerful elephants, many people are bound by earlier conditioned restraints. Just as the unattached chain around the elephant’s foot keeps them from moving, some people impose needless limits to their personal progress.
Don’t let this happen to you as a couple.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. –Victor Frankl
We’ve seen it happen too often. It occurs when a rocky relationship gets to a stalemate because of one partner’s resistance to change.
“If you don’t go with me to see a counselor, I’m out of here.”
That’s when the couple enters a very scary space, when the resistant person’s deep need for loyalty is threatened to its very core – when they feel that they may lose their partner’s loyalty and commitment altogether.
There’s no need for any couple to get to this point.
Even the conditioned elephant will change at this point. When the circus tent catches on fire and the elephant sees the flames and smells the smoke, it forgets its old conditioning and runs for its life.
And get this: Forty-five percent of Americans report that they would change a bad habit to become a better spouse if they could. The truth is, they can change.
Each of us can improve ourselves to be a better partner whenever we decide to. The question is when will we decide to?
Reflect and Respond
What is one thing you know you can change for the better about yourself if you decided to?
Go ahead, tell us in the comments.
Related Resource
The big and little annoyances in your marriage are actually opportunities to deepen your love for each other. Turn your marriage’s prickly issues into opportunities to love each other more as you learn how to build intimacy while respecting personal space. Replace boredom with fun, irritability with patience, busyness with time together, debt with a team approach to your finances . . . and much more!
If we had had these bad habits, or what Dr. Willard Harley calls “love busters,” we wouldn’t have gotten married in the first place. These habits were created after we got married. As a marriage coach, I follow the Lord’s prescription for leaving your first love (Rev.2.4): Remember, repent and (re-)do (v.5). Remember what it was like before you had these bad habits, repent for your bad habits, and do non-bad habits. To me, the repenting is about changing your mind about the bad habits that caused you to need to revive the flame of romantic love in the first place.
Paul sends…
My wife told me the other day she won’t go to counseling. That made me sad. But it is not stopping me from working to change and allow The Lord to change me into a godly man over time. I am reading a book called boundaries that is helping me with the change. I am also reading “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23”. It is changing my perspective to be one of seeing how I am to shepherd my wife and kids in looking at their needs and meeting them above my own. Last of all, I have a new life sentence from King David. He told Ahimelechs son, “Stay with me; Don’t be afraid…you will be safe with me.” It will take a while maybe years for my wife and kids to trust me when I say that, but it is the legacy I want to leave for them.
I could build up my husband daily.
Please what of if it’s your husband that doesn’t want to change.