Category Archives: Marriage

Marriage Matters—When I Am The Why

I had been asking God for so many years to change my husband. Begging God, really. But I saw little to no movement over almost two decades. Makes a girl weary, you know? Finally, God made a change, and that change was in me.

During the very difficult beginning of our restoration season, God allowed me to see things through a very different lens. It was the lens of heaven, seeing my husband with eyes of love and compassion over his brokenness. Seeing him as God sees him…as a child of God, hurting, and in great need of the Father’s healing. For his sake, not mine. And that is where the change came. In the motive of my prayer.

I realized that all those years I wanted my husband to change so that my life would be easier, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with his anger, and his verbal abuse. I wanted him to change so that I could relax and maybe be happy for a change.

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

This was the verse that God first used to address my prayer life, specifically my prayers for my husband. This is where I began to learn that motives matter to God, and my motive in prayer was me, more often than not.

As my view of my husband changed, so did my motives. As I saw what God saw, my heart broke for my husband more than it broke for me. And when I began to pray out of a genuine desire to see him free, to see him know the deep love of His Father, to know his worth – the changes I had prayed for began to happen. Little bits at a time for sure, but they were there.

Discovering that God is my source of happiness and peace, not my husband, was a shift I needed that enabled me to begin to pray with Godly motives rather than selfish ones.

If you are weary in prayer for your spouse, let God call out your motives. It will be hard, but so very worth it.

Marriage Matters—Choose Your Battles

Very few battles are worth fighting or even winning. Stop and think about the last real argument you had with your spouse. I mean the argument that caused one of you to get hurt or brought a cold silence that lasted for at least a day. Do you even remember what it was about? Was it worth it?

After almost 40 years, many of which were lived at war with my husband, I have learned a few hard lessons:

♥ Very few arguments are worth the price of peace that is paid to win them.

♥ Being right is a small consolation when it damages my friendship with my spouse.

♥ Winning an argument is a much smaller victory than the victory of giving up my need to win it.

♥ Not every battlefield needs to have my flag on it.

♥ It’s harder to stop a battle in motion than it is to walk away before it begins.

♥ Marriage battles are generally fought with words, and our tongues are hard to control once they are loaded for battle. Our words used to win an argument often lead us to long-term regret and not much else.

So what are the battles worth fighting? First, I think that question needs to be posed to God. He alone knows. The best I can do is give you my opinion on two good questions to ask yourself and the Holy Spirit.

? Will someone else be harmed if I don’t fight this particular battle, especially someone in my family?

? Will not engaging in this conflict result in my disobedience to God’s word, or compromise my walk with Christ in any way?

Hopefully, your answers to those questions will serve as guardrails in your decisions in conflict. I absolutely believe there are times when we should dig in our heels, but when we do, we should be quite certain that God is dug in with us. But most of the time, we should back down. If my husband is asking me to rob a bank with him, that will be a hard no from me, and I will not be moved from that position. But if I think we need to have a go ’round because he won’t do his fair share around the house, even after numerous “discussions”, then I’m gonna have to count the actual cost of going to battle over it rather than just letting it go.

Those are simple and easy scenarios, and not based on real events, but our lives are much more complicated than that, I know. So please allow me to submit this for your consideration:

Most of our battles are fought to the death because we are prideful, not because we are right.

Choose your battles well, my friend, and remember that more often than not, no battle at all is the best choice.

Marriage Matters—Look for the Sin

After seeing my parents’ marriage fail, and then my first marriage fail, I just wasn’t a fan. But I gave it a second go anyway, only to prove to myself that I was right – marriage is not a good thing. At least for me. God changed my opinion, but it took a long minute.

Allow me, if you will, to share some of what God showed me that helped me see marriage with much kinder eyes.

A number of things happened as a result of that infamous bite of forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. Sin affected first, man’s relationship with God – “But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Genesis 3:9-10), and then, the marriage relationship – “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (vs 16). From there, the effect of sin in our relationships would spread to their children, as seen in Cain and Abel.

Sin will always affect the relationships of the one who entertains it. We never sin in isolation.

When I look into the scriptures, I come away with this conclusion –

Marriage is not the problem. Husbands are not the problem. Wives are not the problem.

Sin is the problem in our relationships. God made a good thing when He created husbands, wives, and marriage. We are the ones who make them hard and painful, and sin is what we use to do that.

Jesus has made restoration possible, between us and God, and between us and one another. But walking in healthy, thriving relationships, both divine and human, means that we become ruthless with our own sin. It means we become experts at repentence. Instead of focuing our attention on what our spouse is doing wrong, we’ve got to become really good at examining our own hearts, our own thoughts, and our own actions, in the light of scripture. Where is the sin in me?

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the way everlasting.…” (Psalm 139:23-24)

That’s what it takes. A “search ME” way of living in relationship with others.

Marriage is good. Sin makes it hard. Be quick to look for it, quick to repent of it, and quick to forgive it in others. It will change the game, if you’re willing to do it.

Marriage Matters—It’s Subtraction

I was thinking about marriage the other day, as I was getting ready for work. It took a hot minute for me to realize God was present, directing the entire conversation I was having with myself. 

I pondered my young, selfish view of marriage so many years ago, and then how many people I see today who have that same view. Oh, it’s not a conscious attitude. If it were we would surely correct ourselves. It shows up in our words and actions, without ever making an appearance in our brain (so it would seem). 

It’s the idea that when we get married, we are adding a spouse to our life. 

And then we’ll just go on with all our dreams, with all our habits and ways – we’ll just have someone else joining us. 

We don’t really think that deep about things like how we’ll spend our money now, how we’ll spend our time. We go into marriage enamored with the idea of sharing our life with this other person. Our life. Not their life. 

{And let’s be honest, many of us don’t think past the relief that now, we won’t be alone. That’s really as far as we got in considering this marriage gig.}

We don’t count the cost of marriage. We don’t think about all the ways our lives will no longer be our own, or about the fact that we are going from independence to dependence. We don’t consider that our plans and our dreams and our passions will not be center stage anymore – there is someone else’s plans, dreams, and passions in the picture now. 

We don’t let it sink in that we aren’t adding someone to our life, we are dying to our old life to begin this new life. We’re giving up our right to do anything our own way anymore, our right to live independent, to spend ourselves on what we want. To chase our own dreams, pursue our own plans. Marriage is about two becoming one, moving as one, living as one.

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  (Matthew 19:6)

Marriage is not addition, its subtraction.

When we get that and choose accordingly, our marriage will flourish. When we don’t, it will break.

And when I bent over to spit the toothpaste out, God bent down with me and whispered… 

That same view of marriage is permeating the Gospel today. 

God forgive us for allowing people to believe that they are adding You to their life. 

“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” – Revelation 19:9

Marriage Matters—to the sons, from a daughter

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.” (1Corinthians 16:13-14)

 To the sons of the King, from His daughters. To those who have embarked, or are preparing to embark on the journey of marriage, allow me to speak to your heart, from the heart of His daughters everywhere.

~ Be on your guard. (This means be alert, and more literally, be awake.)

Life can become routine, and at times mundane. Please don’t let it lull you to sleep, which will lead to indifference and apathy. Stay hungry for Jesus. Keep watch on the wall with us, and for us. The devil never ceases to prowl, but you pose no threat to him if you are not awake. He is your enemy. We need you to be his. 

~ Stand firm in the faith. (To persevere. To be steadfast in the faith, by adherence to it.)

We beseech you – when compromise beckons you to step down from the high ground…stand firm. When the enemy tempts you to walk the easy, less demanding life of lukewarm faith…stand firm. When the winds of adversity are at gale force, making you want to turn and run…stand firm. We have committed ourselves to you, so where you go, we go with you.  We would much rather stand with you.

~ Be men of courage;  (The original language means “play the man”.) be strong. (That word means…be strong.)

Our world applauds men who think they are women. People pay money to see men  dress and act like women, and dedicate talk shows to men on their way to becoming women. The attack on masculinity has been vicious.

You are men, and we want you to be men. We want you to walk, talk, dress and act like men. Be brave and be strong. Be protective. Be fierce. Be warriors. Be secure enough to let us see you cry. Be nice to kittens and ruthless to spiders. Play the man.

~ Do everything in love.

You are watchful, fully awake. Your feet are firmly planted on the high ground of faith. You are strong and brave. And everything you do is governed by love.

You are the sons of the King, worthy of His daughters.

Marriage Matters—next time, i’ll just go ahead and die

It happened again. I lived when I should have died. And the livin’ got ugly, let me tell you. Everything I’ve learned about marriage ran screaming from the room. Ok, maybe that was me running and screaming. Either way, I am still suffering the repercussions of a dynamic marital explosion between two people who should have died, but chose to live. It feels somewhat like a hangover. All because he said something I didn’t like in a tone of voice that just yanked my chain. I should have just died. I’d feel a whole lot better today.

I’m a big fan of going into things with eyes wide open. That’s why I think preachers should say, “Marriage is good. You guys are gonna make it hard.” during every wedding ceremony.

Marriage was God’s idea, therefore it is good. We’re the ones that give it a bad name.

When God began the process of restoring my marriage, He started with me. I argued vehemetly against this tactic, since I was clearly the victim in this marriage. I mean, it was just so obvious. God saw things differently, and I lost the first of many arguments. To prove His point, He began exposing a lot of things. Ugly things. Anger, pride, rebellion, unforgiveness and a mindset that was based on self-interest. Just to name a few.

My story of restoration is a bit long for a blog post, so I’ll just give you a few of the lessons I learned. Of course, it comes with the disclaimer that what I learned isn’t always followed by application. If it was, I wouldn’t have this headache.

~ For a marriage, or any relationship for that matter, to be restored, people are going to have to change.  You may have to go first. In fact, I’d say it’s a probability. Don’t bother arguing. You won’t win.

~ What we want isn’t the issue. The real issue is “what does God want?”.

~ And the harder question to answer is, “do you want what He wants?”.

~ I’m much better off searching the scriptures for what God is saying to me, rather than what He may be saying to someone else.

~ Instead of stating the obvious, start stating the truth. For example, it may be perfectly obvious that someone is acting like a jerk. No need to announce it, or continuously mutter it under your breath. Instead, declare to your heart what God says about them…that they are dearly loved by Him, created in His image, etc., that He desires healing and restoration for them, that He wants to do them good and not harm. It will keep your heart turned toward them, which makes praying for them much easier. And they won’t have to sleep with one eye open.

~ God is our first love, our best love. He alone can completely satisfy our need to be loved. If we are not secure and complete in the love of God, then when the love of our spouse fails us (and it will), we will be devastated, which means marriage just got a lot harder.

~ Fix your eyes on Jesus. It’s easier said than done, trust me. Our tendency is to fix our eyes on the other person. I make you this promise:  If you are looking at what someone else is doing (or not doing), eventually, you will get offended. Guaranteed.

~ Actions and responses are weighed equally by God. He never gives us permission to walk in our flesh. (Galatians 5:19)

And finally…drumroll please…

~ You must die.

None of this happens apart from death to self. It’s what makes Galatians 5:19 possible.

I had to die to unmet expectations, unrecognized rights, unmet needs. Everything that was for me rather than for Jesus.

He wants to bring life to your marriage…but there has to be death  first. He won’t kill you. Death will be your choice to make.

Oh, and another thing. You’ll need to leave your spouse’s death to God. In answer to my “What about him, Lord? Doesn’t he have to die too?”, God sent me to the following scripture.

“Jesus answered, ‘If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.'” (John 21:22) Yes, God has both a sense of humor, and an answer for everything.

Lessons learned, not always applied. A restoration in process. Marriage. God’s very good idea, made difficult by flawed people.

die to self

Hopefully, next time, I’ll just go ahead and die.