Empty Bucket - Continued!

A plastic yellow bucket. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

written by our beloved Robyn from Up With Marriage
(cont’d from my response to Sis’s post on “Who should initiate sex?”)

“In either case, for me, it was selfishness. Whenever I ventured into “examining” my own bucket level (on a comparison basis), I soon found myself in a victim mentality and walking through the front door of the pity party.”

(I’m continuing the dialogue, but am taking a slightly different direction)

C.S. Lewis aptly stated, “There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan.” I think that makes earth a battlefield, and everything in it; including our marriages and our beds.

You don’t get much more claim to a thing than inventing it yourself, which God did with marriage. At the onset of this institution Satan didn’t lose any time at all in his efforts to counter-claim its domain. And the current sad state of our divorce rates are proof of his fingerprints; and winning score.

I’m speaking of offending spouses (mostly wives) that withhold on sex. We come up with umpteen different sizes, styles, colors and shapes of excuses to be ‘excused’ … all the while thinking that ours is the only case that is different, and that because our situation is different (nobody’s husband is as bad as mine) we have the ‘right’ to have our bucket be filled, before we pour it out — at this point I’m dancing at my pity party with beverages in each hand — it‘s in full swing!

There is just no soft way or smooth euphemism to say this, so I’ll just come right out and spill it: Offering sex from an “empty bucket” is the quickest and most strategic weapon you can use to claim the ground in marriage before Satan does.

Did I just say to use sex as a weapon? Yup, I sure did. The only problem with the power of the weapon of sex is that when we use it: 1) we use it wrong and 2) on the wrong opponent. We withhold from our husbands thinking he’s the enemy, in effect, giving ground to Satan as the thrust from our weapon (withholding) drives into our
husband‘s heart. In order to strike our enemy, we need to ‘join’ (as in becoming one in the bedroom) then, spiritually speaking, we direct the strikes from our weapon towards the very enemy that has tried to separate us.

An empty bucket is an opportunity to adapt and grow to be more Christ like. This simple action (although difficult) fulfills many biblical directives:

-love keeps no accounting of wrongs
-returning good for evil
-suffering for doing right
-forgiving your brother from your heart

Just to name a few!

SOLUTION: I found it very heavy to carry around this bucket that constantly reminded me of my husband’s “score” in filling it; while keeping me blind to my own filling of his bucket. I decided to chuck my bucket. I gave it to God because He’s the one who’s in control of it anyway. No more pity parties with empty buckets!

Read More of Robyn’s Great Writing:

Happiness Versus Joy – Victim or Victorious  (Up With Marriage)

Flotation Devices   (Up With Marriage)

Him Who Your Soul Loves  (Up With Marriage)

Tagged: C.S. Lewis, Christ, Christian, God, Marriage, Satan, Sex, weapon