…Second Fiddle.

S:

Romans 12:10

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor;

(NASB)

O:

This verse come from the center of a passage where Paul was instructing new believers on how they should behave. The passage leads with the admonition to be careful that you do not take control regardless of what specific task it is that you are performing. In the wider setting of the early church, they were quick to realize that not everyone was good at everything, and that they each had special talents and gifts that could and should be shared with the larger community. So, when we translate this into the marriage theater, we get the following…

A:

The message translates the last half of the vs10 as “practice playing second fiddle”, and this may be an easy illustration for us to get a hold of. In any instrumental group there is always the lead instrument and then there are the supporting instrument, regardless of whether or not we are talking about single instruments in a small band, or we are talking about a large orchestra with several of the same instruments in the section. In a small band there is usually a lead instrument that carries the melody, and then the other instruments carry the various harmonies as support. In a large orchestra, there may be a section of trumpets comprised of several trumpets and the lead trumpet(s) are called first trumpets which usually carry the more robust tune, while the supporting trumpet, known as 2nd and 3rd trumpets play a supporting harmony. So back to our passage, what Paul is trying to say to us here is that being the lead is not what the love of Christ should be driving us to do. Having the love of Christ in our hearts should help us to play a servant role, not always be clamouring for the front man position.

“Be good friends who love deeply”…what more simple saying could we be looking for for grounding our marriage, than thinking about being friends with our spouse. Stop and think about this for a second…when your dating days first started, it was a friendship that was really at the start of it all. You became good friends. There is no way you would have made it through engagement and the early days of marriage if you hadn’t started out as good friends. Many of us may have become too good a friends, but that is a story for another day. So how do we get so far away from being good friends to being strange ships that simply pass in the night. I wonder if for many couples, if once we get past the good friends stuff, you know, sharing milkshakes and stealing french fries from each other tray, and get on to the “real” friendship activities like kissing and having sex, we forget about the simple and easy stuff. We walk into paying bills, soccer practice and church meetings, and suddenly there is no time for the cute little things that remind us we were friends first.

“Practice playing second fiddle”…somehow it too easily happens that we start this “tit-for-tat” (not literally) thinking that says if I have to do this all by myself, then I’m not going to…”, and it generally devolves into a downward spiral where nothing is getting done without someone grumbling or complaining that they are the only ones doing anything, because they refuse to open their eyes and see how much the other one actually is doing. We have to remember that in the marriage theatre, we each bring special gifts and talents to the table, and we need to remember to thank God that our spouse has the talents that we don’t, and remember to thank them, both privately and publicly for what they mean to our marriage, home, family and yourself.

P:

Lord, please help us to remember that we married a different person for a reason, and that those reasons are still and always will be valid, and need to be respected. Amen.