We just bought a house and it is great to have a place of our own. To be able to do what you want, to change what you want and how you want, without asking the landlord's permission is a really cool thing. Freedom is a great thing. My changes. My ideas. My options. My wallet. Oh, that one hurts... 

     Just like the other day. When we bought the place I knew going in that there were "issues" with the lawn sprinkler system, but being a guy "I can fix that". No problem. Our house had been owned by a single mom, and as life goes for singles raising kids, the lawn is way low on the priority list. So any upkeep on the sprinklers just didn't happen. Really can't blame her as I was a single dad for a few years and kids are much more time consuming and important than lawns or sprinklers, etc.

     I can fix this. I got out my tools and went to work and fixed one section of old sprinklers by replacing them with the new water conserving sprinkler rotors. Cool. I knew I could do this. On to the second section. Did the same conversion – out with the old and in with the new, turned on the water and  - nothing! NADA! ZIP!  It appears that somewhere underground, that I can't see so I can't "fix it", is a broken pipe or significant leak. I hate when that happens. It messes with the whole order of the universe when men can't fix things. Why would we have tool boxes if we weren't meant to fix everything?

     Lawns, sprinklers, cars are nothing compared to how we try to fix the real stuff in our lives. But there are so many things that we aren’t able to fix. At least not by grabbing the tool box, or hammer, or whatever. Like our wives, our girl friends, or our daughters for instance. They come to us and we listen long enough for a diagnosis – and then we are ready to deploy the repair / part replacement strategy. “You just need the new more efficient sprinkler head and everything will be better”, when so often they aren’t looking for better, but just to be heard. They aren’t wanting answers and solutions, but an available ear and an open heart that really shows it cares by listening without an attempted repair or fix-it list. 

     I am as guilty as the next guy at trying to fix, rather than listen. I could use the old party line, “It’s my job to fix things – I’m a guy” or “it’s just the way I am” or a hundred other lousy reasons to stay just the way I am, rather than change to who God needs me to be. In Ephesians 5 Paul tells us to love our wives like Jesus loves His church. To show and prove that love, He willingly died to make it a reality for all of eternity. That’s how we are to love our wives; just like that. Guys we have to be ready to die to the things that we want in order that we may love our wife the way that Christ would have us love her. We have to lay down our interests and our agendas. One way to make that a practical reality is to learn to listen all the way through when she wants to talk. We prove our love for them and our desire to be more like Jesus by learning to listen.

     This is hard stuff. Flowers and chocolate are easy. Tool boxes are easy. Listening with no agenda on our part is where the rubber meets the road of allowing God to change us from who we are to who HE desires us to be. Funny thing about it; He will change us as we let Him. He will shape and conform us into the image of His dear son, as we let Him. Will you let Him change you into who He needs you to be?