I'd just finished mowing the lawn, and it seemed like the perfect time to spray Weed & Feed on the grass. Except I didn't have any Weed & Feed.

"I'm going to the store," I told Karen.

"But the kids and I are waiting for you to go to the pool with us," she said.

"That can wait," I said.

"Honey," she said, "we promised the kids we'd all go."

Next thing I knew, we were having a heated argument. I knew what I wanted; what she wanted could wait.

Most of us stumble over the words of (Ephesians 5:21) because we're concentrating on what's fair. But if we insist on playing out our marriage that way, we only bring pain to our spouses and ourselves. To paraphrase Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, "If you insist on an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you'll both end up blind and toothless." God wants to spare us that pain, so he gives us a better way: "Submit to one another."

That doesn't come naturally. Scripture has to remind me: Exaltation comes after humility. You have to descend into greatness.