Week 8

It’s a lot of areas that we have covered in the last 7 weeks, isn’t it?

What was one top thing you found useful for building your marriage relationship? What was one change you have made as a result of being part of this learning journey?

Marriage is complex, isn’t it? There are so many things that affect the health of our marriage and many of these are totally beyond our control. It is not totally false to say that marriage is a risky business and that anything can happen.

Great marriage does not happen when we just let it cruise along. We have to fight to keep it that way.

I Wonder….

 I often think back to several periods of our marriage life, before we became Christians, where we were tiltering at the brink of giving it all up and walking away from it.

One key thought that weighed us down during such dark moments was the seemingly right conclusion that we married the wrong person. We were so incompatible in many ways. We wondered how we could so foolishly overlook all these earlier on.

A big question is: ‘Is a couple meant to learn about all the incompatibilties and deal with these completely before their marriage so that these would not be there for them to deal with after marriage?’ Is that possible at all?

It is interesting to note that the strong feelings for one another, which led a couple to their decision to be married, often defy all logic and cause them to be oblivious to the incompatibilities, no matter how obvious they are to those around them.

Yes, every couple have things, some very serious, they have to work through in marriage. No one is spared of this. Many couples who have remained married after many decades together would affirm that it is the persistency in working through the differences between them that has contributed to the great strengthening of their relationship.

 We must not give up easily. Not for a matter as important as marriage. We do not give up just because the marriage is failing. We do not give up because someone else seems to be the ‘right person’ to be with.

‘What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility.’  George Levinger

Worth Thinking About

I like the Amplified Bible version of 1 Corinthians 13:7.

‘Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]’

One cannot really start to know what the agape kind of God’s love is like until he starts loving his spouse sacrificially and unconditionally. Choosing to love, in spite of.

Worth Praying About

 ‘Lord, strengthen my husband/wife to resist any temptation. Stamp it out of his/her mind before it reaches his/her heart or experience. Lead him/her not into temptation but deliver him/her from all evils such as adultery, pornography, drugs, alcohol, food addiction, gambling and perversion. Remove all temptations especially in the area of (name specific temptation). Strengthen him/her where he/she is weak. Help him/her to rise above anything that has put a stronghold in his/her life. May he/she say, “I will set nothing wicked before my eyes; I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me” (Psalm 101:3).

“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). I pray that (spouse’s name) will not be broken down by the power of evil but raised up by God’s power. Protect him/her and fill him/her with Your Spirit and flush out all that is not of You. Help him to take charge over his/her own spirit and have self-control to resist any temptation from anyone or anything. May he/she “abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9). I pray that he/she will be repulsed by tempting situations and have the courage to reject them. Teach him/her to walk in the Spirit so that he/she will keep away from the lust of the flesh.

Worth Doing

For those of us who do not feel that we have married a wrong person, we commit today that we will never let that thought dwell in us at all in the future.

For those who let this thought cross our minds occasionally or even frequently, choose this day to commit to work on areas that you struggle with your spouse about.

Stay Together For All Seasons