This week we examined the difference between selflessness and selfishness. We kicked off our discussion by talking about things our spouses do that we find annoying. Luckily, it happened to be the week that Kayla couldn’t attend, yikes, her list would’ve been long! During this discussion, we learned lots of juicy facts about Jacob and Kym that I feel must be shared publicly on the blog for those unable to attend:

• Jacob hates when people pet him
• Kym likes to paste her hair to the wall of the shower
• Jacob likes to squeeze the toothpaste from the middle

There were plenty more items but my notebook was running low on pages.

Next, we talked about ways to selflessly approach all types of personal relationships. We explored how Jesus would handle various relationship situations that members of our group have faced. Through group discussion, we developed the following list of ways we can imitate Jesus in our relationships:

• Use kind words
• Praise others
• Ask for forgiveness
• Provide forgiveness
• Actually listen
• Stop, take time for people

During our discussions there were a couple of great quotes shared that those of you that couldn’t make it shouldn’t miss:

“In a fight even if you win you lose.”

“You need to put 100% into your marriage at all times. Marriage is a 100% relationship not a 50% / 50% relationship.”

“If you look around the room and you don’t see anyone that sucks the life out of you, you may be the vampire.”

Doug also told a great parable about ants on a driveway to illustrate why God became human and lived among us. I don’t have the exact version he told but it went something like this:

Imagine there is a driveway and on one side of it there is an ant hill and on the other side there is an unlimited supply of tasty ant food. All day the ants travel across the driveway back and forth between the food and the ant hill. Each time a car drives through it squishes hundreds of ants but the ants, not knowing any better, continue to cross the driveway only to be run over by another passing car. You desperately want to save them, but as a human, you have no way to communicate with the ants and tell them how to safely reach their destination.

What if you could transform into the body of an ant? You would be their size, speak their language, and look like the other ants. The ant population would understand you and accept you. You could explain to them why they are dying and what they can do to save themselves.

This is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus came to earth as a human to save us from ourselves.