Marriage God's Way - Sharing the Pie

Transcription

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Michael Pearl:  The first lesson that I learned in marriage, is that all women are irrational and emotional unstable. [laughter] The first lesson I learned is that they just don't make sense most of the time. They're hard to understand. It took me years before I reconciled myself to the fact that I am not capable of understanding a woman. I can never press her in to the mold of my logic, and my indifference and my nonchalant approach to sense. There are things that I just don't care about, that my wife cares about deeply. There are things that needs that I just don't have. It just doesn't make sense to me.

For instance, if you are a person that has never had never cold feet, and you sleep with a partner that's got cold feet, you just don't understand their need to put their cold feet on your thighs. [laughter] It took me a lot of years before I learned to put sock on my wife before she goes to bed. [laughter]

Marriage does involve a lot of compromises. It involves a lot of "OK, if you say so," and it involves a lot of giving over. You see, it's not a 50‑50, it is a 100‑100. It is one man giving 100 percent of all that he is to a lady for her sake and for her good. It is a lady giving 100 percent of all she is, her talents, her gifts and abilities, to one man for his sake and for his good.

You know the Bible tells us that love believes all things. Love doesn't keep account. It doesn't keep score. When we start keeping score in a relationship, we're no longer in that relationship for the other person, we're in it for ourselves. When we start keeping score, it's a game. It's a game where we are counting winners and losers.

We keep score not in hope that the other person will win, but in hopes that we win. It's a very lousy relationship where two people are trying to balance everything else. Have you ever seen two kids trying to divide something up? I remember, I loved chocolate pie when I was small. There was nothing I like better than a chocolate pie.

Now, as I have gotten older, I don't eat chocolate pie. If I ever come over, don't have a chocolate pie. When I was young, I loved chocolate pies, and my mother would usually fix one pie, and we would divide it seven ways, and it never did go very far.

One night, when my brother and I were on up about eight and 10 years old, mom and daddy went off to a class and she said, "We have got a whole chocolate pie, and we are going to leave it here, and after you wash the dishes, you can eat this chocolate pie." Now, we washed the dishes with our eye on that chocolate pie.

Then the time came to split it up, when we dried the last dish. I rushed over being the bigger one, the elder one, and much more capable of determining where the middle of the pie was. I rushed over to slice it down the middle. My brother saw where I was laying the knife and said, "No, that's not right, over this way a little bit."

I said, "No, this way." He said, "No this way." I said, "No, this way, this way...," puff upside down on the floor was the chocolate pie. We both stood there looking down at that big puddle of chocolate pie on the floor, splattered out everywhere. Our opportunity, the first time in our life, to have half of the chocolate pie. [laughter]

I looked at him and said, "You can have it all." [laughter] He looked at me and said, "I don't want any pie, you can have it all." I said, "You dropped it." He said, "No, you dropped it." I said, "It was your fault." He said, "It was not! It was your fault." I said, "No, it wasn't, it was your fault, because I was going to cut it in half." He said, "I know how you are. You won't cut in half and you'll keep the biggest piece."

I said, "I...," kind of like a marriage, wasn't it. [laughter] We were both wanting the biggest piece of the pie, and we didn't get any pie. Most Christian marriages are ending up in divorce. I say most, more than half. In fact, the rate of divorce in Christian families is about the same as in the world, not any different.

That's sick! Why? Because, they can't agree on how to divide up the pie and they are fighting over it. Now, I am not here to tell you tonight that the man ought to slice the pie, and you take what half you get. What I am here to tell you is, that when it comes to time to slicing the pie, ladies, you should say, "I really don't eat pie, I want you to eat all the pie."

You men should say, "Listen, I just don't really care that much for chocolate pie, you can have the whole thing. I want to see you get to eat the whole pie." I'll tell you what, "Let's just eat one piece, and then we will think about eating another one, OK. Here have a bite." "No, you take a bite." That's the way marriage is built.

They are built on a concern that the other person gets the larger quantity, the bigger slice. "You can cut it." "No, you can cut it." "Well, whatever you want OK. I'll cut it." It's a matter of seeking the good of the other person.

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