Eggs With a Side of Repentance

Monday.  7:30 AM.

"Kalan, I'm running down to the market to get some eggs.  Want anything?"

"Milk, please.  For coffee."

"Well, to get milk I'll need to go to the store" (which is not actually true since 7-11 is a 3-minute-walk from where I buy eggs).  I frown slightly--just enough to show him what an inconvenience this is, but not so much that I feel guilty for being a mean wife. 

Sighing (audibly, in case he isn't appreciating all the trouble I'm going through for him), I grab the food-budget envelope and head out the door, returning from my arduous, fifteen-minute, round-trip walk with the eggs and a small carton of milk.

The thing is, if I had been wanting the milk, I would not have thought twice about walking an extra three minutes to the store.  I was more concerned with my own convenience than loving my husband.  Even worse, I disguised my selfishness with a facade of self-sacrifice to make myself feel okay about it.

My frowning and sighing were not in step with the truth of the gospel.  "In humility count others more significant than yourselves," the Apostle Paul tells us.  "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" because Jesus--God Himself!--became human in order to die for us.  At great personal cost, He chose to love us.*

Thank you, Jesus!  He loves me so much that He died for me...

But I'm not even willing to walk an extra three minutes to the store for my husband, after I asked if I could get anything for him?  The light of the gospel illuminates the insanity of my sin.  It's silly, yet serious.  Each mundane moment of running errands, folding diapers, chopping onions, and giving medicine to a fussy baby matters.  These are the moments in which I live out the gospel or not.  I can respond to Jesus with thankfulness and love, or with boredom and selfishness.

It's not easy.  Progress is slow.  Later that evening, after the Holy Spirit had grabbed hold of my heart and showed me my milk-scenario sin, I confessed my bad attitude to Kalan and and asked him to forgive me.  (We had a good laugh about it, too.)  We also asked Jesus to help me.  

More repentance.  That's what I need.

And maybe a few pointers on breakfast-planning.

*Galatians 2:14, Romans 12:10, Philippians 2:3-4