Who does the dishes in your house? It may be you, your spouse, the kids, or even the dog I suppose if you leave the dishes on floor. For lots of families this can be a point of contention. As kids I remember we would do anything we could to get out of doing the dishes. Usually one of us would have to wash and another one would have to dry. If you were the dryer, you would love it if you could find a speck of food left on a dish because then your sibling would have to re-wash it. Never mind that you would have to re-dry the dish. You were doing something you didn’t like and if you could make more work for someone else, at least you felt like you had a little control. The furthest thing from your mind was serving.
Fast forward to adulthood. Now what does doing dishes look like? Well, one thing that is a little easier is that we have a dishwasher, but dishes still have to be loaded and unloaded. And, of course, now that you are an adult I’m sure you never still try to get out of doing the dishes do you?
With kids grown and gone, in our house it has become a different kind of game. When dinner is done, my wife and I will try to clear the table and load the dishes first because we truly try to out serve the other. My wife has even accused me of unloading the dishwasher when silverware and pans are nearly too hot to touch, just so I can beat her to it. Don’t think I’m competitive or anything. Needless to say, neither one of us ever feel as though we are having to do more than our fair share of the work.
When we strive to out serve or out love our spouse, it always goes to a good place. Try it this week and see how it plays out.