Dig for Discovery
It was early autumn. The leaves on the trees were golden as the afternoon sun slid behind the skyscrapers on my urban college campus.
I stood at my professor’s car feeling alive. After a stimulating class discussion, I discovered another layer of thought with my fellow students. As I helped my professor with her bags, I wondered aloud, “Did you already know that before you taught the class this afternoon?” To me, it felt like a group discovery.
She just smiled, got in her car, and said, “What do you think?”
I waved as she left and replayed the class in my head. How clever! I thought.
She had questioned and guided us until we came to the discovery ourselves.
Instead of handing us the information via a lecture, she showed us the ground, gave us the tools, and we dug out the treasure ourselves. The knowledge was ours to keep, not just a jotted note in a notebook that would be thrown away after finals.
Years later, as I studied pedagogy, I recognized that my professor had facilitated our learning through Socratic questions, a teaching strategy used by the Greek philosopher Socrates. As I become a teacher in my own classroom, I found that guiding students to discoveries was a lot harder than just telling them, but the learning impact was huge. Whenever I could, I gave ownership to my students, as my professor had given it to my class. I gave them the shovel and pointed in the approximate direction. There! Find your knowledge.
When I traded teaching chalk for dirty diapers, it was easy to adapt this philosophy to parenting. I was astonished at how my child grew as he explored the world with my guiding hand. But when it came to my husband, I threw the philosophy, as they say, out the window.
Dirty dishes in the sink again? White clothes mixed in with the dark ones? Staying up late the night before and then rushing to get ready for work? I watched as his poor choices led to natural consequences, which I would then reprimand.
It usually sounded like this, “You’re an adult! Why haven’t you figured this out when I’ve told you so many times! Don’t you see the consequences of your actions?”
Instead of finding ways for my husband to discover helpful habits for himself, I ranted and railed. But it wasn’t working. Instead of following my advice, his choices (and our relationship) became cluttered with missteps day after day.
I lectured. He moaned.
My husband wasn’t changing in the ways that I’d like.
One day, as I journaled about how much I’d grown through a difficult time, I realized I’m still making significant life discoveries, just as I was in college. I’m so grateful that God doesn’t expect me to be perfect. He allows me the room to grow as I encounter life. He doesn’t harshly scold me when I forget but instead extends grace and the tools to do better.
Why was I not extending the same grace to my spouse?
I needed a paradigm switch. Instead of thinking that my husband’s poor manners were to spite me, I had to approach the challenge as his helpmate. Perhaps my husband really didn’t see the problem with his behavior. Maybe he hadn’t felt the natural consequences to be spurred toward change. Or perhaps it was my heart, concerned with small things, that needed change.
Author Stormie Omartian said it best in her book The Power of a Praying Wife: “Our goal must not be to get our husbands to do what we want, but rather to release them to God so He can get them to do what He wants.”
I needed to spend some time in prayer. After all, God is the ultimate source of wisdom and knowledge. He has already given us the tools for challenges in life—his Word and Holy Spirit. So I sat in my room, reached for my Bible, and prayed, “God, help me discover the truth in this situation. Help me see how I can change and how I can be a better helpmate for my husband.”
Challenges, even domestic ones, are a part of life. But can challenges be disguised as opportunities to make us holy?
James 1:2-4 reminds us to “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (ESV).
I can see it now—my future: I stand in the kitchen. I am frustrated by dirty dishes left on the table. What do I do?
Do I rage? Do I bite my tongue? Do I swallow the lecture?
Can I pick up my shovel and dig for a deeper truth that God has for me?
God, show me the treasure.
is a wife, mother, and self-appointed adventure curator. As a lifelong learner, she enjoys exploring the Midwest where she lives and painting her experience of motherhood with words.
Photograph © Agustin Fernandez, used with permission
