Seeing Good !

²⁷ He that diligently seeketh good procureth favour: but he that seeketh mischief, it shall come unto him.!” Proverbs 11:27 (KJV)

A few years ago my marriage was crumbling; I felt like my husband’s heart had turned to stone and no matter what I did he could not hear me. For years he had dearly loved me and we have been together along time, but he has never known how to show it in the ways I needed.   Over the years my insecurity have grown.  I feel at some point he eventually  just started believing he could never please me that no matter what , he felt he could never  make me happy.   Sadly, even though he never left physically we separated emotionally.

Despite my deep hurt,  I had to take ownership of what I  could change.  But I also had to mourned my marriage, I had to let go of the dream of what marriage looked like to me, and move forward.   I had to consider my part in what had happened this emotionally separation didn’t just happen,   I  realized that starting in the earliest days of  my marriage  I had subconsciously believed the worst of my husband, rather than the best.

For example, if he said something that hurt me, I subconsciously thought: He knew that would hurt me and he said it anyway.  With anyone other than my husband the thought would have been  they didn’t  mean to do that .  But when it came to my husband I only thought the worst.   It never came to my mind : He loves me, so he wouldn’t deliberately say something that would hurt me. Or I would think: If he really loved me he would do this particular thing. But since he isn’t … he doesn’t.

Deep down, without realizing it, I believed my husband didn’t care. Even though, for most of my marriage in many ways, he did and he showed me but I was so hurt I couldn’t see it.

Have you ever believed someone didn’t like you based on something they said or did? I know I have. But as followers of Yahweh, we need to ask ourselves: Are we searching for evil or searching for good?

There’s a benefit in looking for good. Proverbs 11:27 tells us we get what we look for: “If you search for good, you will find favor; but if you search for evil, it will find you!”

My research confirms this truth. Over the years I have had the pleasure of talking to many happily married couples trying to find out what they are doing differently. What is making them so happy? What are their secrets?

Of all my discoveries and one on ones , one thing stood out as a prerequisite for any good relationship: believing the best of the other person’s intentions. Or to be more precise, refusing to believe the worst.   In all of the happiest relationships, even if someone couldn’t completely explain what had happened, they resolutely assumed that their spouse or good friend cared about them and had no intention of hurting them.

And that is usually the truth! For example, in the hunderds of married people I’ve talked to, only a tiny fraction no longer cared about their spouse. Even in some deeply difficult marriages, most of the time, the hurt was not intended. In happy marriages, the offended spouse chooses to believe that; in unhappy marriages, they don’t.

For most of us, “searching for good” when we are in pain is not our/ mine  default response. It is so easy to gauge what the other person intended by how we feel in the moment ( I do this too easy).  But that only creates more pain!

Yes, sometimes the intentions of people we love aren’t good. But in most cases, they don’t want to hurt the people they care about any more than we do.  So I had to face it my husband was not out to get nor did he mean me any harm. 

Better yet, as the key verse explains, by expecting the best, I bring out the best. We all know this deep down; we just have to act on it. And when we do, everything changes.

Thank You Lord,  for putting people in my life who care about me. And thank You for showing grace to me even when I don’t deserve it. Help me to have grace and see others through Your eyes. Through the power of Your Holy Spirit help me to search for the good in each situation and not assume evil intent. 

In Yahweh’s Name, Amen.