If what's required of me in every relationship can be put on a check list and completed, then I can check off those boxes and no one can say I fell short? I don't need to wonder what to do in each situation, I just look at my list. And if I've fulfilled my roles, I'm good. Right? I win some good living from God.
If my relationship with my husband can be summarized by respect and submission, then I can cram him into that role, and frame all my actions in that light. I don't need to seek the Lord in all things. I can check off that list and tell God I've done right. I've fulfilled my role. Now, where is my prize?
If my husband's relationship towards me can be boiled down to a certain shade of love—protecting and providing—then he can consider himself a good husband so long as he works and nothing bad happens to me. He doesn't need to seek the Lord about how he should treat me. He has his checklist. He can say he has done right. Who can hold anything against him?
If I decide that "good" parents let their children express their emotions and don't give corporal punishments, then I can obey that. I can meet the "good" parents checklist, and if the children turn out bad, that's their doing. I've measured up to my own standard. What can they say against me?
And if I deem that good friends never assume things about each other and always remember each other's birthdays and a few other considerations like these, I can hold up my rubric to my friends and decide who is a good friend and who is not. I can hold up my rubric to myself and be satisfied with my performance. And if my conscience or friends or spouse points a finger at me, and says, "You did me wrong," I needn't trouble myself with them. I know it's not true.
But if loving others—spouses, children, friends, and family—isn't a checklist or a role to play, but rather a full-bodied, organic, growing, learning, evolving sort of thing, then we need guidance. We need the Holy Spirit. We need God in us teaching us how to do this for all situations: when a spouse is sick, when a child has down syndrome, when a friend is going through a divorce, when someone is pregnant, when confined to a wheelchair, when we lose a job or our voice or our desire to be good.
While the Bible gives plenty of wisdom for relationships, if we use any one of these exclusively, we're missing the point. For example if I were to take the description of love in 1 Corinthians 13 as the model for how I ought to love my children, I might not discipline them because 1 Corinthians doesn't mention disciple. Or if I exclusively use the description of parental relationships found in the ten commandments, namely to honor my father and mother, I might never tell them hard truths or, in some cultures, take on a certain vocations.
All the Bible's descriptions of love give the bones for what only the Holy Spirit can give life to. Loving others is something that grows and evolves as we live and change and grow. Love is something done with God daily through his help and wisdom. And there's no mold that it fits into. It is unique and beautiful and powerful, and that's how it proves genuine.
More on roles and wisdom: Discerning What To Do, Proverbs 8, How Women Ought to Act, The Enneagram 1's Magnum Opus
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