“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourself. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4 CSB – Read the chapter)

I haven’t watched a whole lot of TV content lately, and as a result, I haven’t been doing the media reviews I normally do on Fridays. Actually, of late, these Friday posts have been a bit of a grabbag. Some days, I’m not sure what I’m going to write until pretty late in the game. Today is no exception. But God is faithful and life manages to keep churning out things worth talking about. In any event, I was having a conversation about marriage last night. We were talking specifically about the roles husbands and wives play and should play in the relationship. One of the statements we were reacting to was this: “I think we will be happier if there is an even balance of power in the relationship.” In a culture that is obsessed with power and who has how much, that’s a pretty significant statement to consider because your reaction is going to have a pretty significant impact to how you pursue your relationship. Let’s talk about it for a few minutes.

Culturally, the expected response to that statement is strong, positive agreement. Absolutely we will be happier if there is an even balance of power in the relationship! If there is an imbalance of power, that’s not going to be fair to whoever it is that has the least amount of power. Things should be equal for the sake of fairness. After all, fairness is one of our culture’s top core values. Just look at all the different ways we pursue it.

In schools, some students are able to make higher grades than others. The reasons for that are many and complex, but there are some folks in positions of power who have been taught to look at that as unfair. One of the common responses to this perceived inequity is to get rid of grades. Everyone just gets a passing or a failing grade. That way no one has to feel badly about themselves (because, of course, we don’t actually fail anyone). No one has to be jealous of anyone else. Everyone gets the same thing.

We find ways to “level the playing field” in sports too. In fact, our culture is currently tying itself in knots on the sports question because the fairness core value is being crossed by our core commitment to total sexual autonomy both in practice and in self-identification. To be more precise, the commitment of some to advancing the cause of transgenderism in every possible sphere of culture has made the sporting field a cultural flashpoint. These folks want transgender women (that is, men) to be able to express their gender identity through the sports they pursue, pitting biological men against actual women. The obvious unfairness of that because of the physical differences between men and women is what is causing the clash.

This commitment to fairness comes home to roost in our relationships as well. We want to make sure that things are as fair as possible. If you get this, I should get that. If I perceive you as having power that I don’t share, I’m going to work to gain some power that you don’t share for reasons of fairness. Everything needs to be balanced.

Here’s the problem: rarely in relationships is the power balanced. What’s more, if our focus is on who has what power, we are focused on the wrong things. When we are giving our attention to that, what we are going to be constantly looking for is times when it is out of balance. Well, if we are looking for times when the power in the relationship is out of balance, we are going to find them. We’ll find them all over the place. And when we find them, if balance is our chief aim, we’ll set about tinkering with our relationship in ways we think will bring things back into balance. But if our partner sees things differently than we do (they almost certainly do), then they are going to react to our efforts to tip the balance in a direction that feels more favorable to us by doing things on the other side that they perceive as tipping the balance back in a direction that’s more favorable to them.

Do you know what this looks like? You probably do, because you’ve probably felt this tension before. This looks like a couple fighting over power. Of course, they won’t likely come right out and say they are unhappy because they feel like they don’t have as much power as the other. That would be petty and make them look small. So they focus just on the proximate cause to the argument rather than the root from which all of their arguments spring.

Here’s a better question: Do you know what you are necessarily not focusing on if you are giving all of your attention to who has how much power in the relationship so you can make things more balanced (at least as you see them)? Selflessly serving the other after the pattern of Christ.

Here’s a fact about relationships that is worth embracing, and the sooner you can do it the better your relationships will become. Power in relationships is rarely balanced. Power levels in a relationship are situational. In some situations, one of you will have greater knowledge and skills and wisdom. In those situations, the one with all of those advantages will naturally have more power than the other. In other situations, then, the reverse will be true. The other will have more power. Who has what power is going to be in a constant state of flux. Sometimes, you will have two or three different situations all happening at the same time, and the power levels you each have will be different in every single one of them. If you focus is on bringing your power levels into balance, you are not going to be giving these various situations the attention they need in order to make sure they turn out the best, God-honoring way possible.

What Paul wrote to the Philippian believers is wisdom worth heeding for these times. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit.” Do you know what drives so much of our concerns about balancing relational power levels? Selfishness. We want to have the most. We don’t really want things balanced, we just want more power than we have. We want the most power. Think about two kids cutting a piece of cake to share. They’ll fight almost to the death over who gets to do the cutting, and if they perceived even the slightest imbalance, the one who feels like things are tilted away from them will insist on getting more. How much more? Just enough that they have the most. We do the same thing in our relationships when we are fighting for power. Don’t do that, Paul said. Don’t let that sin-rooted impulse be the thing that drives you.

Instead, “in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.” Are they actually more important than you are? Of course not. But when your sense of self-importance is properly rooted in God’s estimation of you and not your sin-tainted estimations of yourself, you can treat them as if they are without losing anything. Instead of constantly striving and scraping for more and to make sure your desires are getting fulfilled, take all of that energy and direct it toward your partner. “Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.”

Rather than worrying about whether the other has more power than you, shift your focus around. Look for all the situations in which you are pretty confident you have the most power. And as you start to identify these, start looking for ways that you can leverage your power for the sake of the other. How can you use the advantages you have to advance the interests of your partner? If you are sitting higher than your partner, how can you take your position and use it as an opportunity to boost your partner up? If you do this, you’ll cut the legs out from under their tendency to fight about power levels. What’s more, if both of you do this, then you won’t ever have to worry about who has what power again because you’ll both learn to trust that when the other has power you don’t have, they’ll use that power for your benefit, not their own. You’ll start to delight in being powerless in a situation because of the thrill of having them lend you their power and lifting you up to be on their level with them.

Doesn’t that sound better than fighting about power all the time? When you are both in a race to see who can selflessly make the other better, everything will be better.

So, what power do you have? You have that power because God gave it to you. And He gave it to you so that you can help someone else – starting with your partner – to be more than they could otherwise be on their own. Use it accordingly.