A Cliché Thanksgiving Post

     During this time of year, it seems rather cliché to say something about appreciating and being thankful for your spouse.  It’s probably even more cliché to say something like, “And we need to be mindful to vocalize our appreciation all year ‘round, and not just at Thanksgiving.”  Yeah, it is cliché.

     But here’s the problem.  We either laugh at the cliché or we resent it, but both responses are because we know that in our overly busy lives, it is far too often true.  Think about it.  When was the last time you thanked your mate for putting up with your oddities (yep, you have some)?  When was the last time you thanked your spouse for an encouraging word?  For helping you with something?  For loving you unconditionally?  For listening?  For your sexual relationship?  For a hug when you needed one?  For caring enough to tell you to lay off too much dessert?  For laughing with you?  For challenging you to do better?  For holding you accountable?  For helping you to understand something?  For taking time off just to be with you?  For watching your favorite movie with you, even if they hate it?  For sharing a dessert?  For a phone call or text, just to say “I’m thinking about you”?  For a home-cooked meal?  For a date night?  For being a good parent to your children?  For holding your hand?  For believing in your dreams?  For dreaming with you?  For making life sweeter and more bearable because of how they treat you?  For praying for you and praying with you?

     And as you contemplate whether or not you’ve thanked your mate for doing those things for you, also consider whether or not you’ve given him/her a reason to thank you for the same.
     Yeah, it's cliché.  Now go do it.

______________________

What does God want from my marriage?

  A Weekend Marriage Enrichment Retreat

Friday-Sunday, March 7-9, 2014

Edgewater at the Aquarium Hotel and Conference Center
Gatlinburg, TN

Limited to 30 couples

Email dfcamp@gmail.com for more info

__________________________________

 

Looking for a great Christmas gift for someone interested in creating or working on a powerful marriage ministry?  The Marriage-Friendly Church is available now and gives you the questions every church needs to be asking.  Available at 21st Century Christian or on Amazon.com

"Till Death Do We Part" --A Wonderful Promise!

     In marriage, growing old together can be a powerful witness to the goodness of God.  “Till death do we part” is a wonderful blessing.  In Christian marriage, it is the promise that someone who loves God and loves you will be by your side.  It is embracing the idea of “one flesh” and ‘helpmate” in all their fullness.  When you can watch your mate pass from this life and truly say, “Part of me has just died,” only then will you fully understand why God chose marriage as an analogy for his love for us.

     As you age with your mate, you cannot be certain about anything except this: THINGS WILL CHANGE.  Everything—physical health, communication, intimacy, family relationships, (possibly) mental health, social relationships, spirituality—will change.  Sometimes change comes slowly and sometimes change comes quickly.  However it happens, you have to expect change.

     The key question is how will you respond when change happens?  Remember, no matter what stage you are at in your marriage, Satan will always be working to destroy your covenant relationship, either through neglect or through more aggressive means.  When your spouse doesn’t look like she used to, do you begin comparing her unfavorably to others?  When your sex life changes, do you seek intimate connections elsewhere?  When your mate’s spiritual beliefs change, do you condemn him or recognize that you are both on a spiritual journey and he may be at a different place?  When age or illness causes physical disabilities, do you see helping her as a burden or as a blessing?  When he has a hard time relating to your adult children, do you talk negatively about him in front of the kids, or help him through that difficult transition?  Remember, Satan is always looking for changes in your marriage relationship that can be exploited to drive a wedge between you and your spouse.

     Obviously, every couple is different and is living out their own unique story.  However, here are some general thoughts to keep in mind as you move from wherever you are now toward “till death do we part.”

• Keep your relationship anchored in Christ.  It is always easy to let your marriage become directed by the world, but your love for God is always evidenced by how you love your spouse.  Pray with each other always.
• Remind yourself of your marriage covenant on a regular basis.  Whether it’s re-watching your marriage video, renewing your vows, or just reflecting daily on the blessings your spouse brings to your life, continually reinforce a positive perspective of your marriage relationship.
• Express your love both in word and in deed often.  Your mate needs to hear and see your love on a regular basis so that there is never any doubt in his/her mind.
• How you communicate might change, but don’t let communication die or the relationship will die with it.  Without communication spouses become isolated and lose connection with each other.  Healthy, regular communication is necessary for any relationship to work.
• Handle conflict in a timely manner.  If conflict is not addressed, walls will build up between you and your spouse.
•  Practice forgiveness on an ongoing basis.  Forgive your mate and forgive yourself.  Don’t let the poisonous root of anger, resentment, and guilt kill your marriage.
• Continually guard each other’s hearts and minds.  Proverbs 4:23 reminds us that it is the well-spring of life; your own personal spiritual life and the life of your marriage.
• How you express intimacy may have to change, but don’t let intimacy slip away.  Showing intimacy—physically, emotionally, socially, intellectually, and spiritually—is always necessary for a healthy connection.
• Recognize the power and necessity of acceptance.  Your spouse won’t always look the same.  Your spouse may not always think about things exactly the same.  You may face changes in your family structure.  When changes occur, it is critical to let your spouse know that you accept him/her for who he/she is. To bemoan what you cannot change is hurtful to your spouse and negatively impacts your marriage.
• Constantly check where you are spending your time and your resources because that is what you value.  Your resources always flow to your priorities, so at every stage, with every significant change, verify what is really important to you.
• Don’t wait until the elusive “later” to enjoy your time and do things with your mate.  It is always easy to wait for “a more convenient time,” but tomorrow doesn’t always come.  Live within your means, but don’t live with regrets over the simple pleasures in life that you were too busy to enjoy.
• Play together and laugh together often.  Few things can connect you to your mate as intimately and powerfully as playing together.  And, when the uncertainty of change looms darkly on the horizon, shared play and laughter can alleviate anxiety and worry better than anything else.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.  There is no shame in needing help.  When different stages of life present problems you’ve never encountered before, seek the counsel of other godly couples who have walked that road ahead of you.
• And most importantly, use your marriage in God’s kingdom at every step.  The list of ways you can use your marriage to serve God’s Kingdom is endless.  And what you are able to do at one stage of life might be different from what you are able to do at another.  Just be intentional to do something together to serve God’s Kingdom at every step of the way.

     Change is often confusing and trying.  We are resistant to change because it is frequently accompanied by the unknown, and that can be scary.  The blessed promise of a Christ-centered marriage is that God has given us someone with whom we can face the challenges of life.  Whether we are singing praises to God on a mountain top or walking through the valley of the shadow of death, we know God is with us because our spouse is with us.

     Together, embrace the joys and blessings that come with each stage of life.  Together, love each other through the hardships and pain.  Together, use your marriage powerfully in God’s Kingdom.  Be the very presence of Christ for your mate in every way possible—in love, in forgiveness, in grace, in mercy, in selflessness, and in goodness.  When you do that, in the end your marriage will be a blessed promise.

______________________

What does God want from my marriage?

  A Weekend Marriage Enrichment Retreat

Friday-Sunday, March 7-9, 2014

Edgewater at the Aquarium Hotel and Conference Center
Gatlinburg, TN

Limited to 30 couples

Email dfcamp@gmail.com for more info

__________________________________

 

Looking for a great Christmas gift for someone interested in creating or working on a powerful marriage ministry?  The Marriage-Friendly Church is available now and gives you the questions every church needs to be asking.  Available at 21st Century Christian or on Amazon.com

Are You Living In Forgiveness or just forgiving?

     Thinking back over your week, were there any instances that made you angry or upset?  Perhaps someone cut you off in traffic.  Or maybe you were promised something and the person promising it didn’t deliver.  Or possibly your boss was demeaning to you.  Was a clerk or cashier rude to you?  Did you have an encounter that left you stewing over it for the rest of the day—or perhaps even the rest of the week?

     In a typical week, we encounter any number of offenses.  Sometimes the offenses are minor.  Aside from being briefly inconvenienced, they carry little or no consequences.  Other times the offenses are major.  They hurt us deeply, leave us reeling, and have ongoing repercussions.  Sometimes offenses come from those we barely know.  More often than not, the things that really hurt come from those who love us the most deeply.  So how can we build strong marriages in the face of pain?

     When we do something that hurts our spouse, there is a breaking of trust.  I trust my mate to make our marriage a safe place.  I trust my mate to encourage me, protect me, and draw me closer to her/him, as we both draw closer to Christ.  So, when offenses happen, those expectations are challenged and trust is eroded.  But does that mean there is no hope since we all sin and fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23), since we all hurt our spouses from time to time?  That’s where forgiveness becomes so critical to our lives in Christ and how we live out those lives within our marriages.

     Failure to forgive is poison to a marriage.  If that poison is allowed to take root, it will grow and fester until its toxic roots wrap around your heart.  If not eradicated, it will destroy the marriage relationship.  For a marriage to work, forgiveness must be freely given and received.  Forgiveness is essential to any healthy relationship.  But here’s the problem—forgiveness is an easy concept, but a difficult practice.

     For many, the reason forgiveness is such a difficult practice is because we have been trained to think of forgiveness as a series of one-time acts.  If you offend me, I can forgive you.  If you offend me again, I can forgive you again.  And on-and-on it goes.  As this process happens over and over, we come to think of ourselves are “a good person” because I am willing to forgive my mate “seventy-times-seven” (Matt. 18:21-35).  The problem with this mentality though, is when we think of each act of forgiveness as a separate incident, we are still counting offenses (maybe not literally, but it feels that way to the person forgiving and the one being forgiven) and make forgiveness a legalistic process rather than a Spirit-led change in who we are.

     For forgiveness to exist in a relationship as close and intimate as marriage, a relationship where you live daily with each other’s faults and failures, we must cultivate an ongoing environment of forgiveness.  Forgiveness must be a part of the very fabric of your marriage relationship.  It must be woven throughout, so that forgiveness is not a series of one-time acts, but a fully-integrated way of life.  Forgiveness in your marriage should not be something you anxiously hope for, but rather something you thankfully and humbly praise God for.

     There is a powerful spiritual principle that says what we do with a little we will also do with a lot.  (We see this principle applied to financial matters in Luke 16:10-12.)  This same spiritual principle also applies to forgiveness.  You can spiritually train and discipline yourself to be a forgiving person.  It begins by being forgiving in small matters.  If you are not forgiving with the little things, you will not be able to be a forgiving person, because what you do with small things you will do with great things.  Don’t approach forgiveness just as a series of individual choices and actions, but cultivate a powerful, ongoing climate of forgiveness within your marriage.

     Forgiveness is not ignoring the effects or consequences of bad behavior.  Certainly confession and accountability go a long way in opening the door for forgiveness.  Pride and a stubborn refusal to admit your own fault in conflict will have tragic consequences for a marriage relationship.  Our actions have consequences and genuine honest forgiveness doesn’t automatically erase the ramifications of our actions.  Forgiveness is also not an immediate restoration of trust in a relationship.  As much as we’d all like to think otherwise, “forgive and forget” is a fallacy.  There is always a balance between being able to be honest about your spouse hurting you and acknowledging that it will take time to heal, versus refusing to forgive.  When you forgive, that won’t always erase the hurt or restore the trust, but at least it puts you on a path toward healing and reconciliation.

     When you live in forgiveness, it removes the fear of punishment and retaliation, and extends mercy and grace and love.  It is granting freedom, not because it is deserved, but because the very nature of love demands it.  As I said, the concept is easy to understand, but putting it into practice is much more difficult.  But do you best to let your home be a place of forgiveness, not just somewhere that forgiveness sometimes happens.

 _______________________

What does God want from my marriage?

  A Weekend Marriage Enrichment Retreat

Friday-Sunday, March 7-9, 2014

Edgewater at the Aquarium Hotel and Conference Center
Gatlinburg, TN

Limited to 30 couples

Email dfcamp@gmail.com for more info

__________________________________

 

Looking for a great Christmas gift for someone interested in creating or working on a powerful marriage ministry?  The Marriage-Friendly Church is available now and gives you the questions every church needs to be asking.  Available at 21st Century Christian or on Amazon.com