Their story went like this. George came home one night and was greeted as usual in the living room with a tender kiss. But as he held Ellie in his arms, his eyes wandered to a corner of the room and he saw hanging from the ceiling a long, wavy cobweb.

He said nothing about it that night, or the next, but both times while maintaining a pleasant appearance, he said to himself in disgust, “What kind of a woman did I marry that she can’t keep her house clean?”

On the third night he said precisely, “Honey, there’s a cobweb hanging from the ceiling.”

Her response was to kiss him and laugh. “Oh George, dear, I see you’re going to make a good housewife out of me.”

He was relieved. He had won his point and kept her smiling.

But inwardly Ellie was appalled. “How long have his eyes been prying that out of the ceiling?”

Some nights later, George, watching Ellie wash dishes, could keep his peace no longer. “Dear,” he said, “Do you know you’re washing dishes cross-handed?”

“Cross-handed?” she asked. “What’s that?”

George told her gently how she could save time and energy by switching her washing position with the draining position to avoid the long reach-over. Inwardly, George was fuming at the simpleness of a woman who had to be told something so obvious.

“Oh George, honey,” she said. “I never thought of that.”

However, within Ellie, resentment flared: “Now he tells me how to run my kitchen!”

A few weeks later, deeply disillusioned, the newlyweds came to me.

As we discussed their problems, George said accusingly, “Can’t a man believe what his wife tells him, especially when she’s kissing him?”

Ellie retorted, “Did he have to hide his criticism behind sweet words?”

The quiet manner and tender kisses had been a smoke screen. George and Ellie were doing the right things because they were expected, but they had little meaning. They were living by the letter of the law, which Paul says, in 2 Corinthians 3:6, is deadly: “He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

George came to see that his problem was not his wife’s housekeeping, but his attitude toward her. Ellie came to acknowledge that her problem was not a critical husband, but her unwillingness to accept criticism. Together they asked God to help them speak the truth, in love, according to Ephesians 4:15: “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ...” in order to have a sound basis for working out their differences.

The names and certain details in this true case history have been changed to protect each person’s identity and privacy.

In the course of five years, Calvin had come to wonder whether a commitment to the Lord actually meant anything. The inconsistencies he observed made him wonder.

“I think I’ve had all the Christianity I want,” he added.

About a year after he learned of his uncle’s double standard of living, Lane was even more shaken by an act of his pastor. The minister who had been his Christian ideal for many years was arrested on charges of embezzlement.

He often thought about his uncle and the pastor, but did not permit his disillusionment to deter him from entering the Lord’s work. He became bookkeeper for a Christian service organization. He found happiness in the things the organization did in the name of Christ.

After three years, Calvin Lane was made personnel director. This put him into the inner circle. The jealousies and intrigue he discovered there brought all his old disillusionment back.

“If we’re going to live like the world, why weigh ourselves down with Christian ethics?” he asked.

I had to admit that there are hypocrites in the church – and once-sincere persons who have drifted from God’s ways. “The Apostle Peter was one of these,” I said, “and Judas betrayed Christ. None of the Twelve was an ardent follower in Christ’s great hour of trial. But Jesus never said to put your trust in a disciple.”

I referred him to Romans 14:12, “So then every one of us will give account of himself to God.” That helped him let go of his bitter attitude. He saw that he had been judging Christianity by phonies. When he accepted his own responsibility—which was his relationship to God—he dedicated himself anew to serving the Lord.

On the other side of the coin, the unchristian lives of many Christians that nearly caused this young man to abandon his faith should make every believer search his life to see if he dares say with the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:9, “Those things, which you have both learned, and received and heard, and seen in me, do.”

The names and certain details in this true case history have been changed to protect each person’s identity and privacy.