What Does It Mean to Have Good Will?

12 Pages·2009·0.05 MB·English

by  Joanne Tims

What Does It Mean to Have Good Will?

Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

“But what,” I am often asked, “is good will? How do I know I am
showing good will toward my spouse? How can I be sure my spouse
has good will toward me?”

A simple definition of good will is “the intention to do good toward the
other person.” But there is much more to it than that. A spouse may
intend to do good, but fail to deliver. Good intentions do not
necessarily guarantee good results.

As Jesus said to His disciples when they went to sleep on the job in
the Garden of Gethsemane, “…the spirit is willing, but the flesh is
weak” (Matthew 26:41). Jesus knew His disciples had “good will,”
even though their follow through didn’t match their good intentions.
The Apostle Paul captured the reality of good intentions but poor
follow through when he wrote about his own struggles with the flesh
in Romans 7:19: “I don’t do the good things I want to do. I keep on
doing the evil things I don’t want to do” (NIVR).

We all know what Paul is talking about. You or your spouse may
want to do the right thing, but you don’t; or you or your spouse may
want to stop doing the wrong things, but you don’t. When your
spouse fails to follow through on good intentions, your definition of
good will must also include the idea that good willed people do not
mean any harm--they do not intend real evil toward one another.
Your spouse may be neglectful, forgetful, or make a careless, even
thoughtless remark; as a result, you may be hurt or angry and may
lash out in some way to retaliate. But despite all these failings, deep
down you both care deeply for each other. Beneath the turmoil on
the surface of what is going on, your “good will” remains in tact.

To Love and Respect, Assume Good Will

My counsel to all married couples who are serious about practicing
Love and Respect is always the same: whenever your spouse’s
good intentions fall by the wayside, you have only one good option:
make a deliberate choice to trust your spouse’s good will. For
example:

You have to leave very early in the morning and you haven’t had time
to fill the car with gas. Your spouse promises to go out and take care
of it while you do some last minute packing and reports. Next day, as
you are rushing to leave, you find the gauge on empty and you feel a
surge of anger. In the next few moments you can choose to believe
your spouse “just doesn’t care” and has ill-will toward you, or you can
decide your spouse made an honest oversight, because you know
she (or he) does not normally neglect a known need.
Choices to believe in your spouse’s good will when he or she forgets,
or gets distracted, are relatively easy. But what about those times
when your spouse does something that is consciously nasty, or
maybe even a little hateful (perhaps to “teach you a lesson”)? To
stay with the “didn’t fill the tank” example, suppose you had come
home late for dinner, hadn’t called, and then forgot to pick up what
she wanted at the store? Perhaps she is so angry she decides to let
your tank go unfilled as pay back for your careless behavior?
I have heard of all kinds of pay back couples pull on each other,
particularly if they are on the Crazy Cycle to some degree. It reminds
me of a story about a couple who had a spat and both were so angry
they hadn’t spoken to each other all day and evening. Before going
to bed he wrote her a note and left it on her pillow: “If I don’t hear the
alarm, please wake me up at 5:30 a.m. since you get up at 5:00. I
have an important breakfast meeting.” At 7:00 next morning, he
finally woke up and was in disbelief. His wife had not awakened him!
As he angrily rolled out of bed, he noticed her note on the night stand.
“Wake up! It’s 5:00 a.m.”

Almost all married couples have encounters that lead to reactions
designed to send the message, “You hurt me, so I am going to hurt
you so you will stop hurting me!” Does this sort of encounter mean
that one or both of you lack basic good will toward the other? Of
course not. Your spouse might temporarily not wish you well,
especially when lashing out in anger, but these exceptions don’t do
away with the rule, and the rule says: “I will choose to believe in my
spouse’s good will when he (or she) does me wrong, whether it is
unintentional or intentional.”
Along with his Romans 7 confessions of not being able to always do
(or not do) what he wants, Paul also teaches that despite our
weaknesses, good will is a reality. Following through on our good
intentions is possible when we seek to do God’s will from our hearts
and “With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men”
(Ephesians 6:7).

As I got more involved in doing marriage counseling I was amazed at
how even Christian couples would rail and even scream at one
another. It appeared they were not at all interested in serving each
other with “good will.” I would sometimes despair, wondering, “Don’t
these people care about each other at all?” But I kept at it, searching
the Bible for something that could help husbands and wives, and then
I came across I Corinthians 7:32-34: “One who is unmarried is
concerned about the things of the Lord…but one who is married is
concerned about…how he may please his wife…And the woman who
is unmarried…is concerned about the things of the Lord…but one
who is married is concerned about…how she may please her
husband.”

I had read this passage any number of times before, but now I saw
something that encouraged me. Even though Paul had the gift of
celibacy and preferred that believers stay unmarried so they could
concentrate on serving the Lord, I noted that 1 Corinthians 7:32-34
plainly says that husbands and wives are concerned with how to
please each other. Certainly, I reasoned, this suggests they have
good will toward one another (or should have).

I began questioning the couples I was trying to help with their
marriage problems. “Does your spouse have basic good will?” I
asked. “That is, although your spouse fails you at times, does your
spouse, generally speaking, intend to do you good?”
I was not just surprised; I was a bit awed when most answered
almost immediately, “Yes.”

I thought to myself, “Emerson, you are on to something significant.”
And then I followed up with the couples who had seemed hesitant to
answer when I asked if their spouses had basic good will.
Rephrasing my question, I said, “Let me put it this way: In general, is
your spouse getting up in the morning with the purpose of trying to
displease you or show you lack of concern? Is your spouse intending
to be unloving or disrespectful?”
Most of those who initially hesitated on my original question
volunteered, “No, I don’t think my spouse plots to do evil, but I wish
my spouse would plan on being more loving or respectful.”
“I agree with you,” I would respond, “but that’s another question. I
just want to be sure. You don’t believe your spouse is pre-meditating
evil or ill-will?”

For the most part, the hesitant couples answered: “No, I wouldn’t be
so strong as to say my spouse is premeditating evil.”
“So,” I pressed, “even though on occasion your spouse can be nasty
or selfish, you are married to a person who has basic good will
toward you?” Almost all the couples answered the same: “Yes.”

But Some People Do Choose the Dark Side

While I was greatly encouraged by most of my counselees saying
their spouses had basic good will, I also had to recognize that a small
percentage were saying that their spouses were acting so badly on a
consistent basis that they did indeed believe their spouses held evil
will toward them. Even more to the point, Scripture clearly attests
that we live in a fallen world in which some people choose the dark
side. There are evil willed people, yes, even toward God. In Psalm
21:11 David exults in how God’s strength will overcome the enemy:
“Though they intended evil against Thee, and devised a plot, they will
not succeed.” In Psalm 36:4, David describes the wicked person like
this: “Even as he lies in bed he makes evil plans. He commits himself
to a sinful way of life. He never says no to what is wrong” (NIVR).

The Proverbs also speak of evil people and their premeditations: “He
who plans to do evil, men will call him a schemer” (Proverbs 24:8),
and still worse, “Evil plans are an abomination to the Lord” (Proverbs
15:26).

Scripture also points to how evil can destroy a marriage. A husband
can love his mate, but deep within her soul she turns her heart
against what is good. She becomes an adulterous wayward wife with
seductive words “…who has left the partner of her youth and ignored
the covenant she made before God” (see {Proverbs 2:16-17). And in
Malachi 2:13-14, the prophet tells wayward men that God no longer
honors their offerings, and instead He is “…acting as the witness
between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken
faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage
covenant” (NIV). I get a lot of mail from spouses who have been the
victims of evil treatment by their partners. These partners made a
decision to no longer act in good will. Following are some
representative samples:

One husband I knew personally committed adultery twice in one year
and then divorced his wife, saying to me, “She gave 110 percent to
this marriage, but I want out.” This man set his heart on his own
course, and was very candid with me about realizing he was the
culprit. He knew he was not doing good toward his wife, that he was
deliberately crushing her.
*************
Concerning another couple I knew, the wife would go out at night,
leaving the children in her husband’s care. She did this for years,
never explaining where she went or who she was with. She wanted
no close relationship with her husband, a good willed servant of
Christ and others, outstanding provider and all around nice guy. The
marriage finally ended.
*************
A wife would fabricate story after story, lying about her husband in
court. Her goal was to ruin her husband. Fortunately a female judge
discerned this woman’s evil intentions and reversed all of her rulings
to go against her and in favor of the husband.

I could go on and on. The point is, there do seem to be spouses who
do evil willed things to their mates on a continuing basis. As you read
these lines, you may be one of the victims of what appears to be “evil
will” by your spouse. I do not know your situation, so I have no way
of knowing if you are totally accurate in your assessment and your
spouse does indeed have an evil will toward you. What I do know,
however, is that it is a serious thing to make the severe judgment that
someone is completely evil willed.

Let me ask two sobering questions: 1. If a wife, looking for “love” in all
the wrong places, commits adultery, is she evil-willed? I go on record
to say she has committed an evil act but is not necessarily evil willed.
2. If a husband, feeling verbally assaulted and abused by his wife,
shoves her up against the wall is he evil willed? Again, I say that he
has committed an evil act, but is not necessarily evil willed.

My Own Father Appeared to Have Evil Will

I would like to tell you a very personal story. I can recall instances
from my early childhood when my dad would go into a rage. On one
occasion my mother had purchased several pieces of new furniture
and had it delivered to the house. Dad was furious over how she had
spent the money and he threw all the furniture out. I can still see one
of the pieces tumbling down the stairs to the sidewalk. I was petrified
by my Dad’s temper and there were other explosions that were even
worse.

After Dad died, I shared with my mother another memory of
something that happened when I was around three years old. It
comes to me in scenes and in the first scene my Mom and Dad are
having some kind of argument. In the next scene my father is
strangling my mother! He has her up against the refrigerator with his
hands around her throat and he is choking her. I run to help and hit
my dad with my little fists, trying to make him stop. He just slaps the
top of my head and pushes me out of the way. In the final scene, my
mother is sitting on a brick wall somewhere outside and she is crying.
A neighbor lady is talking to my Mom through her window, asking,
“Jay, are you all right?” Then the horrific episode fades from my
mind.

When I told my mother my recollection of what happened, she was in
shock. Her face displayed utter dismay: “You remember this? You
were too young to remember this. I can’t believe you remember this!”
But I did.

My father’s violent fits of temper finally became too much and he and
Mom separated and later divorced. Mom, my sister and I moved to a
different address, and for the next three years, my father would come
over practically every day for lunch to see us. As I shared in Love
and Respect, my parents finally did get back together and Mom was
instrumental in Dad coming to Christ.
I feel free to share their story now that they are both with the Lord in
heaven, but I do not do it to shame my father. My mother never
minimized his actions. She never went into denial, saying he didn’t
know what he was doing. At the same time neither my mother nor I,
young as I was, ever concluded that Dad was evil willed, despite the
painful, unnerving episodes that stick in my mind. We chose to
believe that while Dad had committed evil acts he was not evil willed.

Look at Your Spouse as Jesus Would

I cannot know your situation, or what is the right decision for you to
make. But l urge everyone I counsel to take the same view of their
spouse that Jesus would. In a vast majority of cases I predict that the
Lord would say about your spouse, “…the spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak.” Always try to look at your spouse the way the Lord
does. That begins by making sure you are fairly representing your
spouse’s spirit. If at all possible, put it in Paul’s terms from Romans
7: “My spouse wants to do good, but often ends up doing the very
thing he/she does not want to do.” In a word, give your spouse some
“grace.”

One way to think about it is to distinguish the difference between
snapshots of your spouse and a video of your spouse’s entire life.
Perhaps you are fixated on isolated moments (snapshots) and
conclude that these represent the true spirit of your spouse. If so,
you need to take a step back and ask: “Are these ‘snapshots’ a fair
representation of my spouse’s heart?” My point is this: suppose I
would live with you for a week and take several unobserved
snapshots of you during moments of frustration or anger. And then
suppose I would put these pictures on the front page of the
newspaper, claiming that they are a true representation of the kind of
person you really are. Obviously, I could be sued for libel or slander.

Nonetheless I constantly receive mail from frustrated and angry
spouses who condemn their mates because of snapshots taken in
their minds that “prove” their case. As one wife wrote, her husband
“…is not a good willed person. He is an evil man personified in the
skin of Satan.” If I get a chance to interact with someone who is in
this state of mind, I often learn that there are two sides to the story.
The erring spouse has indeed erred, but there are steps that can be
taken to change the situation.

As Sarah and I conduct Love and Respect conferences and counsel
couples across America, we often see that people can pass too
severe a judgment on their spouses, convincing themselves they are
married to Hitler’s distant cousin. But we must never label a Peter as
a Judas, even though on a certain occasion Peter did act like Judas.
As you recall, Judas betrayed Jesus into the hands of His enemies.
Since that fateful act, Judas has been seen as one of most sinister
traitors in all history. But Peter was also a traitor, denying his Lord
three times, just as Jesus said he would (for an account of both acts
of treachery, see Matthew chapter 26). Everyone knows, however,
there is a 180 degree difference between the spirit of Peter and the
spirit of Judas. Full of remorse, but not repentance, Judas committed
suicide (see Matthew 27:1-5). Peter matched his remorse with
repentance and was restored in fellowship with his Lord (see Matthew
26: 74, John chapter 21).

Evil Acts Do Not Always Equal Evil Will

To repeat, when a spouse fails to do good and does bad, this does
not automatically mean a spouse lacks good will. A spouse’s evil act
(anything from thoughtless harsh or cruel words to committing
adultery) can put a couple on the Crazy Cycle. When your spouse
gets mean or nasty it is easy to label him (or her) evil willed.
Granted, you may not use the term “evil will” but at the moment you
are certainly not experiencing good will and your natural inclination is
to react unlovingly or disrespectfully. But if you are trying to live out
Love and Respect, your spouse’s temporary feistiness, nastiness, or
selfishness must be distinguished from evil character.

All of us get crabby, snappy or needy. Sarah and I do, but when
Sarah is hurt by something I have done or said and reacts in a
disrespectful way that offends me, should I conclude that Sarah lacks
good will? Or when Sarah angers or irritates me and I react in an
unloving manner, should she conclude that I have ill will? The right
answer is, “No, of course not.” But it is not always that easy to come
up with this right answer when stung or irritated, when tired or
impatient. After all, I have certain expectations of how Sarah should
treat me and she has expectations of how I am to treat her. When
either of us fail to meet those expectations in the daily flow of life, it is
tempting to play the character assassination game with each other.

Suppose the irony of ironies might happen and I, “Mr. Love and
Respect” would forget to show my love for Sarah by failing to give her
a card on Valentine’s Day. She might have a momentary thought that
I am an unloving hypocrite, but that would be overkill. Or to reverse
the irony, suppose that Sarah, who teaches her own sessions at our
Love and Respect conferences, would forget to show me respect by
making a negative remark about me in front of our children that left
me feeling totally let down. I could easily conclude she is a
disrespectful phony, but that, too, would be overkill. In either case we
would both be like the farmer who saw a fly on his kitchen wall and
killed it with his shotgun. He took care of the fly, but he was left with
a huge hole in his wall. In much the same way, we could put holes in
our relationship by overreacting when we fail to meet each other’s
expectations.

Sarah and I are like every other married couple. When the tension
arises, when the Crazy Cycle coughs into life, we need to remember
when we first met and fell in love. We did not say, “I hate you and
you hate me, so let’s get married.” The same person each of us met
and married is still there, even though, at the moment, it doesn’t
seem that way.

How Being on the Crazy Cycle Can Be Your Opportunity

If you are trying to live with Love and Respect, being on the Crazy
Cycle to any degree is a great opportunity to see the good will in each
other. For a husband, being on the Crazy Cycle reminds him that
when his wife feels unloved, she reacts in ways that he feels are
disrespectful. He could conclude she has ill will toward him, but he
would do much better to realize that the Crazy Cycle has started to
turn, and she does not intend to be disrespectful; what she is really
doing is crying out for love. As one husband put it:

“I used to just get mad when I felt that Yvonne was criticizing me, but
now I might ask her what did I do that was so unloving to provoke
such a reaction on her part…We have been married for almost 28
years and things do get better. I try to always think that she is good
willed and only trying to help me with her ‘suggestions.’”

For a wife who is coping with the Crazy Cycle, trusting in her
husband’s good will can help her to be slow to feel offended.
Although her husband might say something that feels unloving, that
may not be his intent at all; he may simply be reacting to something in
his typically blue fashion. One wife explains:

“One day he said one of those things that cause women to say, ‘I
can’t believe he said that!’ Instead of being instantly offended and
stewing over it for days, I thought of our friendship, which is tried and
true, and I remembered your words, ‘Trust his good will.’ So rather
than seething over it, I calmly asked him what he was thinking when
he said it. I let him know that I wanted to understand. I let him know
how I heard it as well. He clarified and sure enough, I had heard his
‘blue’ thoughts through my ‘pink’ hearing aids. I was thrilled to see
how this practice opened communication between us. It deepened
my belief that I can talk about my feelings and get clarification without
being afraid of the other person’s response.”

It can and does work! Successful marriages experience those Crazy
Cycle moments that feel “offensive”, but one spouse, or both,
chooses to trust that the other has good will. One husband put it
succinctly: “We still have issues where we get on the Crazy Cycle,
but then I stop and realize how petty we’re being. We’re both good
willed. I think I FORGET that too often.”

A wife reports: “…my husband and I have learned to communicate
more effectively. Thinking about the pink and blue hearing aids helps
me not to get my feelings hurt so readily by something Mark says. As
you say, most men are coming at whatever situation we are in with
the intention of ‘good will’, so trying to understand what he is truly
trying to say can eliminate a lot of unnecessary hurt.”

These folks “get it.” They epitomize the wisdom in Proverbs 14:9:
“Fools mock at making amends for sin, but good will is found among
the upright” (NIV). So often, when communication misfires, someone
must step up and try to “make amends” (listen, understand, reach