The following is a quote from Paul Tripp's book "What did you expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage":
“Your marriage may be good. It may even be great. You may have grown together in appreciation, respect, unity, understanding, and love. You may have learned where problems typically exist for you as a couple, and you may have learned how to solve them together. You may have identified places where you and your marriage need to mature. You may have created a lifestyle of honest communication and efficient problem solving. You may have forged a solid and enjoyable friendship between you. You may be able to look back and be thankful because you recognize what you once were compared to what you are now.
“But there is one thing that you need to accept: your marriage may be great, but it is not safe. No marriage this side of eternity is totally problem protected. No marriage is all that it could be. This side of heaven daily temptations are constant threats to you and your marriage. This side of heaven the spiritual war goes on. This side of heaven good marriages are good marriages because the people in those marriages are committed to doing daily the things that keep their marriages good. Things go wrong when couples think they have reached the point when they can retire from their marital work and chill out, lay back, and slide. Perhaps the greatest danger to a good marriage is a good marriage, because when things are good, we are tempted to give way to feelings of arrival and forsake the attitudes and disciplines that have, by God’s grace, made our marriage what it has become.”
We cannot coast through marriage. It's hard work. It's lots of daily attitudes and actions. It's not each person giving 50%. It's each person giving 100%. Is it easy, no. Do we often fail, yes. I can easily say that when we fail it is usually when we are putting our needs and time ahead of the other.
A few years ago Stephanie and I went to a "Weekend to Remember" conference by Family Life Today www.familylife.com. Did we go because our marriage needed help? Yes. Does our marriage need help now? Yes. The truth is that there is never a time when our marriage doesn't need help. When you think that your marriage doesn't need help, it means that it really needs help!
Personal prayer: Lord, thank you for Stephanie. She is a gift from you. Help us to allow you to transform our marriage. Protect and guard our marriage for your sake.
The other day I had a conversation about something very similar, and this person said something to me that struck me; "every day you wake up you make a concious decision to fight for you marriage, the world itself can be against your marriage, but its your choice what happens and how.
ReplyDeleteVery true Emily. There are many things we fight for. Is marriage one of them?
ReplyDeleteThe world is against marriage:
1 John 2:16
For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.
The system itself is against marriage, as well as the three things listed in the above verse: our deep sinful nature, wanting what we see, and boasting in what we have and do.
The good news though is that God is for marriage, He created it. The bad news is that we messed it up. The really good news is that He is currently redeeming it.
Something that Stephanie and I realized years back is that if we keep Christ as the center of our marriage, the closer we are to him, the closer we'll be to each other.