Out of touch with reality

I’ve been there.  Have you? 

Have you ever tried desperately to convince yourself that life was just fine because if it wasn’t, then you were going to have to make some major decisions? 

Even worse, have you ever been the victim of someone else’s delusions? 

Here’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.

Several years ago my family walked into church one Sunday morning.  Our pastor gave a wonderful sermon about the relationship between husbands and wives. 

In both Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 we are told that wives are to submit to their husbands, and that husbands are to love their wives.  The point that the pastor was trying to make, was that husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loves the church.  He said that he has never seen a wife have a hard time submitting to her husband when he loves her with a sacrificial love—the same kind of love that Christ has for His church. 

I wondered how my husband would handle this message.  I hoped that he would take it to heart and begin showing at least a little bit of love towards me. 

Instead, his response to this message was that since the command to the wife to submit comes first, he wasn’t going to have to love me until he was satisfied with my level of obedience.  I was shocked.  The children who heard his comments were aghast. 

My husband wanted so much to hear reasons that justified his bad behavior that he honestly didn’t “get it” when the pastor called him to love his wife. 

He was out of touch with reality.