“While our cultural values continue to elevate marriage, our behavior drifts away from it. We’re a nation obsessed with marriage. The problem is that we may not know how to make marriage work” (Alex Kotlowitz).

To help us to “make marriage work,” we will share this week and next, 8 myths of married love and ways to dispel their falsehood. To do this we’ll be sharing parts of an article title, “Myths and True Meaning of Married Love” written by Michael McManus (the founder of Marriage Savers, www.marriagesavers.org), which is posted on the Smartmarriages.com web site in the Archives section.

At the end of each of McManus’ points we’re adding additional comments, scriptures and discussion questions, hoping you’ll use them to spend “Intentional Time” with your spouse going over them.

“MYTH 1: THE PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE IS OUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS. However, if so, when there are inevitable disappointments, and crosses to bear, the conclusion must be, ‘Either marriage is not fulfilling its promise, or something is wrong with me.’

“Dr Glenn Knecht, of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Bethesda says, ‘The true goal of marriage is not happiness but oneness. Jesus taught, ‘So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate.’ Happiness is a by-product. However, seeking oneness is costly. It involves sacrifice of the ego, so human pride is crushed until it has no life of its own anymore.’”

• Comment on Dr Knecht’s statement on the true goal of marriage.

• Do you agree that “oneness” in marriage is difficult and can be costly? Explain.

• Does this “oneness” mean you can’t have individuality within your marriage?

“MYTH 2: THE GOAL OF MARRIED LIFE IS TO GET MY MATE TO SUBMIT TO MY WAY OF THINKING. Men have memorized, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands.’ But the preceding verse is ‘Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.’ That is followed with the 3 verses on the role of the wife and 9 verses on how men are to love their wives as Christ loved the church.

“Marriage is an exercise in learning to submit even when we don’t feel like it. Knecht adds, ‘If your marriage is a tug of war, drop your end of the rope, so your spouse can win. Submission is the most demanding, most difficult and most important assignment in the school called marriage. It is giving up of rights.’”

• Read Ephesians 5 together and discuss what the Bible says about submission.

• Take turns commenting on what McManus and Knecht say about submission in marriage. How can you drop your “end of the rope” and yet not enable your spouse to continue behavior that you may find offensive?

• Speaker and author Cynthia Heald once said, “Submission is ducking low enough so God can deal with your husband.”

• Wives: Comment on that statement. Do you ever find yourself standing so firm on a point that you’re overshadowing what God wants to do with your husband?

• Husbands: comment on the following statement by Jan Schrader, “So many men want a Godly wife but they do very little to make it happen.” Is this true in your marriage? What more can you do to help your wife be Godly?

• Read together Philippians 2:1-11 and Romans 12:3. Discuss how this is relevant to marriage.

The Life Application Bible gives this commentary on Philippians 2:5-11.

“Often people excuse selfishness, pride, or evil by claiming their rights. They think, ‘I can cheat on this test; after all, I deserve to pass this class,’ or ‘I can spend all this money on myself — I worked hard for it,’ or ‘I can get an abortion; I have a right to control my own body.’ But as believers, we should have a different attitude, one that enables us to lay aside our rights in order to serve others. If we say we follow Christ, we must also say we want to live as He lived. We should develop His attitude of humility as we serve, even when we’re not likely to get recognition for our efforts. Are you selfishly clinging to your rights, or are you willing to serve?”

• Comment on the above statement as it applies to marriage.

“MYTH 3: LOVE IS WHAT HOLDS A MARRIAGE TOGETHER. True, we don’t enter marriage without love. But once that step is taken, it is the vows that hold it together, “for better for worse, in sickness and in health…” Love may actually wax and wane and there are times it is absent altogether. The vows said on the wedding day are sacred promises, said by billions of people. All marriage is spent learning the meaning of those vows.

“Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett was invited to a colleague’s wedding. They did not exchange the traditional vows, but pledged to stay together ‘as long as love shall last.’ He sent them paper plates as his wedding gift!”

• Comment on the danger of promising the stay together “as long as love shall last.”

• What does this philosophy teach children about what marriage is all about — particularly a “Christian” marriage?

• How does this philosophy stack up against what the Bible depicts about marriage?

Next week we will touch on 4 additional marriage myths that fly in the face of reality. In the meantime, if you desire to learn more myths that many believe concerning marriage, the following articles posted on various web site links could be enlightening, as you read them:

• LEARN 3 MYTHS THAT CAN DESTROY YOUR MARRIAGE
(by Dr Randy Carlson, as posted on myflr.org)

• MYTHS THAT CAN DESTROY A MARRIAGE
(by John a Huffman Jr, as posted on Preaching.com)

• BUSTING THE MYTHS OF A CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
(by Judy Bodmer, as posted on Marriage Partnership Magazine web site)

• BUSTING MARRIAGE MYTHS
(by Anita Lazarus, as posted in the South Asian Connection web site)

• DEFLATING MARRIAGE MYTHS
(a sermon outline as posted on the Cornerstone Methodist Church web site)

• THE MYTH OF HAPPILY EVER AFTER
(by Sue Bohlin, as posted on the Probe Ministries web site)

To help you work through the myths concerning marriage that you may cling to, you may find it helpful to read the following article:

• FIVE BIBLICAL PURPOSES FOR MARRIAGE
(by Rick Warren, as posted on Lifeway.com)

Keep in mind that “‘Happily ever after’ may be for fairy tales, but that doesn’t mean there is no such thing as a happy rich, fulfilling marriage. But it’s only possible for those who live in reality, not in the fantasy of make-believe myths. May God give us grace to trust Him to walk in truth and not illusion” (Sue Bohlin, from the article “The Myth of Happily Ever After”).

“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives tales; rather train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:7-8).

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth” (3 John 4).

Our prayer for you (as written in Romans 15:5-6) and for your marriage: “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

Cindy and Steve Wright

“Flirting is fun and usually begins in innocence. It’s a hard habit to break, even after marriage. Yet it causes jealousy. Worse, it puts us into situations we never intended to fall into, and it creates misunderstandings that can lead to infidelity” (Jerry Jenkins).

Whether intentional or not, flirting with someone other than your spouse is a form of emotional unfaithfulness. It’s a serious relationship matter, especially to the offended spouse. That’s why we’re approaching this subject by sharing a portion of a TV program titled, “You’re Not the Person I Married,” aired December 5, 2002 on the Dr Phil Show (which you can find more information about concerning this particular program and additional information, by following the provided “Show Archives” link to DrPhil.com).

In this show one of the couples, Joe and Karmen, were battling over his flirting with other women and the emotional affairs he later developed with several of them. To Joe, it was all innocent fun, because as he said, “there was no sex involved.” But Karmen felt hurt and betrayed.

They set up that segment of the program, showing a tape of both Joe and Karmen explaining their “sides” on the issue. Karmen said,

“I was in love with Joe, and he swore that he’d be faithful to me when we got married. Joe’s been involved with several women over the years, and he says they’re just emotional affairs, but they bother me just the same. I’m suspicious of everything that Joe says to me, and I’m constantly checking up on him.”

To that Joe responds,

“I never thought I would really be able to give up the attention I want from other women. The flirtations with women I have, they’re just romantic. There’s no sex involved.” And “when I tell the truth” (to Karmen when questioned by her) she”gets hurt, so I sometimes have to lie to save her feelings. To be honest, I never thought we’d be married as long as we are now. I think the kids right now have a lot to do with us still being together.”

They then, show a segment where Karmen’s sitting with her son who was crying telling his mom “it’s all my fault” for the problems they’re having. After the video, Dr Phil asks, “Joe, you just saw the toll this has taken on your son. So how much fun is that flirting now?” to which Joe replied, “It’s not fun at all.”

Karmen said,

“He didn’t know that was going to be on there, but I wanted him to see how bad he’s hurting our son without him even realizing it. My son came to me and said, ‘It’s my fault Dad’s unhappy with life because Dad told me he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for us and he’s unhappy being here.’ I said, ‘Joel, he was trying to let you know how much he loves you; that even though he’s not happy with himself, he’s here for you, that he loves you.’ But, of course, my son didn’t take it that way.”

Dr Phil addressing Joe, said,

“You say, ‘I got married, knowing I wouldn’t want to give up the affection of other women. I’m having emotional affairs, but nothing physical.’ You know, just color me cynical, but I don’t believe that. I’m not saying you are or you aren’t —I have no evidence. I can’t prove one way or the other—all I know is what you say, and just one guy to another, I don’t believe that for a split second. But—that’s your position. And then you go say this to your children? Do you feel any responsibility to the health and welfare of this family as it relates to your choices?”

Joe replied, “I never knew my choices would really affect the family the way they have. I have, in the past, thought sometimes, it’s better we should just split up, however.” Dr Phil said, “Well, that’s one option, that’s true, to just say, ‘You know, I’ll just go—and y’all make your own way.’ Joe then admitted, “You know, I like what I have. You know, I love Karmen; I love the kids. I don’t want to give that up either.”

When Dr Phil asked Karmen if she felt betrayed by these emotional affairs, she said, “They hurt just the same as if he was out having a physical affair.” Dr. McGraw said, “Well, you are betrayed” and then turned to Joe and asked him if it truly was a betrayal to which Joe affirmed that they were.

Phil then said to him, “Because let me tell you, anytime you turn away from instead of towards your partner to meet emotional needs, physical needs, needs that are appropriate to a committed, intimate relationship, that’s a betrayal. So you have these needs, and you’re turning away from your wife to meet those needs. What do you expect her to do about that?”

Joe replied, “Well, I know I lost her trust. And I know it will be hard to regain it. But all I can do is say I’m sorry. The feeling I was looking for was that new relationship feeling. We’ve been married 14 years, and, you know, I miss that feeling.

Dr Phil then said, “So you thought, ‘I’ll just go get it somewhere else. And I’ll let my children pick up the tab for that immaturity, I’ll let my wife pick up the tab for that immaturity, and I’ll let our family go down in flames, so I can get a rush every 30 days?’”

Joe said, “See, I never really looked at it that way. I didn’t think it affected them a lot of times, I guess really it was, ‘What they don’t know don’t hurt’.”

Dr Phil then replied, “You said, ‘When I got married, I knew I wasn’t going to give up my want for these other women. I didn’t think we would stay married very long.’ So I guess you just thought you’d just bring some kids in the world and then just kind of leave them in your wake as you went to the next conquest. ‘What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them.’ Are you rethinking that as you sit here now?”

Joe said, “Oh, definitely, yes.” Dr Phil then said, “That’s a good thing because this is about wake-up calls. I’m not trying to beat you up. I’m trying to wake you up and get you to realize what you’re doing here.”

Joe acknowledged that he now saw his behavior in a different light and that he had been wrong but he wasn’t able to make a firm promise to stop for fear that if he failed he’d hurt his wife again with another “broken promise.” He did say he “wanted to” stop flirting and seeing other women.

At that point, Dr Phil said,

“Listen, I understand. Isn’t it all fun when you’re falling in love and everything is new and fresh and all that? That’s all fun just like riding a roller-coaster is great fun for some people. But the truth is, as we mature, we realize that love doesn’t get old; it just transforms.

You know, at first, you’re up all night talking and you’re doing all of this stuff and everybody gets all excited and everything. And I always hear them say, ‘Oh, we’re like soul mates. She knows me so well, she can finish my sentences.’ Then two years later, it’s, like, ‘Hey quit interrupting.’ OK? You know we get that evolution, but we label it as negative when really it’s just a change.”

“I don’t stay up all night talking to my wife because I want to go to sleep. But you know what? It may not be exactly the same; it’s better, but different. If you mature enough to allow that to happen, what you find out is—in exchange for some of the exhilaration in the unknown, you have comfort, you have security —you have a soft place to fall. And when you put effort and energy into it, you can create that exhilaration at the right time along the way.

But in the meantime, you mature into nurturing what’s there, learning to label that the same way you label the others. There’s a big difference between falling in love and being in love.”

We appreciate how Dr Phil tried to bring a wake up call to Karmen and Joe and to all married couples who will listen who feel flirtations aren’t harmful. What may seem to be “innocent” flirting in the eyes of one spouse who is directing it at someone other than their marriage partner, can spiral into all sorts of problems with a lot of innocent people to getting hurt. That’s not what marriage partnership is supposed to involve.

It comes down to the fact that marriage is designed to be entered into by grown-ups — those who are willing to act as mature adults, who vow to join together in exclusive partnership with each other and with God as a “chord of three strands.” It’s a relationship that is to be honored as sacred and protected by both partners so no one outside the marriage has the opportunity to “divide what God has joined together.” (See Mark 10:7-9)

You might find it helpful to follow something that author Jerry Jenkins discovered and shared in his book, Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It (which we highly recommend). He wrote,

“Because I enjoy having fun and being funny, and because my mind tends to find humor in words and unusual combinations of ideas, I could easily flirt with anyone I thought was receptive. Much flirting is funny. If someone says something flirtatious with me, my first impulse is to expand on it, play with it, see how quick and funny I can be. But I resist that. It isn’t fair. It’s mental and emotional unfaithfulness. I would be exercising a portion of my brain and soul reserved for my exclusive lover —my spouse.”

Jerry knows, and so should we, that this isn’t what we should be doing. It’s not God’s way and it shouldn’t be our way either. Think about it, isn’t that what marriage is supposed to be? Exclusive? If not, why marry? We need to consider what God’s word says about our actions:

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Hebrews 13:4).

The flirtatious spouse might not think that he or she is being “sexually immoral” because he/she isn’t actually going through a physical, sexual act with another person. However, the Word of God says,

“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person — such a man is an idolater — has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God” (Ephesians 5:3-5).

Also, it is written:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:27-29).

We beg you to save your flirting for your spouse. Invest your energies in your marriage instead of with someone else. You could find your relationship so much better, feeling newer and revived. And as a result you, your spouse, your children, and your God will be blessed.

Jerry Jenkins has a suggestion in his book that is a good one:

“If you want to flirt, flirt with your wife. She may not look, feel, or sound the way she did when you first flirted with her years ago, but she still wants you to flirt with her. Try it. Wink at her across the room. Blow her a kiss no one else sees. Play footsie with her under the table. Give her a squeeze, a pinch, a tickle no one else notices.”

He continues this thought by saying,

“Wouldn’t you like to be flirted with by someone who loves you, someone who can tease you about what she might do with you later and then deliver?”

Even if you think someone else might enjoy your flirtations as much or more than your spouse, when you took your marriage vows, you promised exclusivity with your marriage partner. So instead, try flirting with your spouse—you may like it! And it may just help to keep your romance alive—just as it has for us as we’ve flirted with each other throughout our almost 38 year old marriage.

Steve and Cindy Wright

How blessed we are that we have a God who has given us the freedom of choice. And how fortunate we are that when we make poor choices, He doesn’t send lightning bolts from heaven to turn us into crispy critters or we’d all be fried by now. But just because we have freedom of choice it doesn’t mean that we should use that freedom to do whatever we desire without considering the consequences to ourselves, to others, and to “Kingdom work.”

The Psalmist prayed in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” How wise those words are for us to pray for our own lives!

How does this apply to marriage? It applies greatly when we realize that we have so many choices as to how we spend our time together and how this can be applied when we own a TV. It’s not that there’s anything inherently wrong with watching television. There are times it actually can be of use to us for many differing reasons— one of them being that sometimes we just need time to retreat into something that doesn’t challenge our brain so we can “unwind” for a while.

Psychologist John Gray talks about how watching television can be a way that most men find helpful to unwind from the day’s pressures. He writes:

“Men come home and every day they like to go through a ritual to forget the day. They want to come home and waste time because they’ve been doing ‘useful things’ all day. They have a need to retreat to their ‘cave’ for a while.

“To men the most ‘useful’ thing to do after work is to do nothing useful — just watch TV. They have a need to escape and retreat and not talk about problems for a while to recuperate.”

So TV viewing can sometimes be useful as long AS LONG AS IT’S NOT OVERDONE. That’s why every couple needs to periodically take the time to assess together whether they’re “on the same page” in how they spend their time.

It’s a lifelong commitment of negotiating as daily we’re bombarded with too many choices as to how we spend our time — especially in this day of advanced technology, which brings everything right into our homes to deal with in some way or another. Recently, we were sent the following illustration from a friend that brings this point to home:

“Last night my wife and I were sitting in the living room, talking about life. In-between, we talked about the idea of living or dying. I said to her: ‘Dear, never let me live in a vegetative state, totally dependent on machines and liquids from a bottle. If you see me in that state I want you to disconnect all the contraptions that are keeping me alive, I’d much rather die’.

“Then my wife got up from the sofa with this real look of admiration towards me… and proceeded to disconnect the TV, the Cable, the Dish, the DVD Player, the Computer, the Cell Phone, the iPod, and the Xbox, and then went to the fridge and threw away all my beverages! …I ALMOST DIED!”

As humorous as this can be, it also has some truth to it in some homes. We pray you’ll work with each other as a team, finding the proper balance for how you spend your days together. It’s something we continually have to work on ourselves—it just comes with the commitment of marriage.

With that said, we’d like to end with the following poem that was sent to us that has challenged our own hearts. In light of the scripture written at the beginning of this message, there’s a challenge in it for us all. We hope you’ll read this message together and spend some “intentional time” together discussing it —giving each other grace and space, but also working together on that which is “beneficial” and “constructive” to the good of all concerned.

THE 23rd CHANNEL
(Author Unknown)

The TV set is my shepherd.
My spiritual growth shall want.
It makes me to sit down
and do nothing for His name’s sake
because it requireth all of my spare time.
It keepeth me from doing my duty as a Christian
because it presenteth so many good shows
that I must see.
It restoreth my knowledge of the things of the world,
and keepeth me from the study of God’s word.
It leadeth me in the paths
of failing to attend the evening worship services
and doing nothing in the kingdom of God.
Yea, though I live to be 100,
I shall keep on viewing television
as long as it will work.
For it is my closest companion.
Its sound and its picture, they comfort me.
It presenteth entertainment before me,
and keepeth me
from doing important things with my family.
It fills my head with ideas,
which differ from those set forth in the Word of God.
Surely, no good things will come of my life
because my television offereth me
no good time to do the will of God.
Thus I will dwell crownless
in the house of the Lord forever.

Let me (Steve) just say in conclusion that as a recovering “TV-holic,” balance in this area of my life is essential. I can easily find myself spending wasted hours in front of the television rather than doing anything productive for my spiritual life or my married life if I’m not careful.

As one writer put it (and I believe it), “Television promotes passivity; people wrapped up in watching T.V. have neither the motivation nor the energy to develop an intimate relationship. It can become so hypnotic that one does not realize how much time is being given to T.V. viewing” (from article “Too Much Television“).

If you feel a “check” in your spirit over this issue, please, don’t ignore it. God gives you that check for a purpose to make the changes He knows is necessary so you don’t rob your spouse, children, and your God of the time needed from you.

To help you further in this area of your marriage, the following are a few suggestions to help you decide how much time you should spend in front of your television (as well as your computer, phone, iPod, game system, etc):

• “Do you realize that every time you turn on the television [and other media], you’re choosing to NOT do something else? It’s important to choose wisely, especially if the time you have to spend with your family is limited” (Dennis Rainey, from “Communal Couch Potatoes” Real Family Life radio spot).

• Don’t watch TV mindlessly. If you’re going to watch, make it for a specific program with a specific purpose” (Dennis Rainey, from “A View of TV” Real Family Life radio spot).

• Read the on line article, “Fifteen Reasons Why I Should Unplug My TV.” It might not convince you to permanently unplug your TV, but it might help you to at least make the commitment to better LIMIT your TV viewing.

• “In our house, we have Psalm 101:3 printed out and taped to the top of our TV as a reminder while we watch. It says, ‘I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away; It shall not fasten its grip on me’” (Dennis Rainey, from “No Worthless Thing“).

• We have a “No Media” night once a week where instead of plugging into any electronic media, we spend time together plugging into growing closer together in our marriage. It’s a type of “Outside Information Diet” where we let the outside world go on without our participation.

• Read the article, “How Much is Too Much TV?” and related articles at the bottom of the LifeWay web site for more tips and helpful information.

We encourage you to pray over and seriously consider this matter. We hope that the above information helps your marriage in a positive way.

Steve and Cindy Wright

For those outside the U.S. how about making it a day to celebrate “just because I love you?” We do that as often as possible to make life funner and our marriage healthier to the glory of God, whose very name means LOVE.

Men, if you’re anything like me (Steve), it’s right about now that you’re hoping and wishing that someone would come along and throw you a “life preserver” (in a manner of speaking). What I’m talking about is giving you some help in getting the perfect gift for your wife this Valentines Day.

It doesn’t take long for most of us to run out of creative ideas of ways to show our wives we’re really thinking about and love them. That’s why we’re sharing an article titled “Some Valentines Tips for Mars About Venus” which we got from Smart Marriages that was written by Dr. Sheldon Walker. This (edited version) appeared in the Globe and Mail Feb 8, 2003.

Dr. Walker suggests getting in front of your computer and creating a coupon book you can print off and staple together. These coupons are designed to be cashed in by your wife. You’ve heard “it’s the thought that counts.”

Dr. Walker gives the following list of suggestions for coupons that count that can help ensure a great Valentine’s Day:

This Coupon Entitles the Bearer to:

• One half-hour of active listening about any topic the bearer chooses, with a full guarantee that no advice will be offered.

• One half-hour discussion of the state of your union.

• One half-hour of massage of any body part the bearer chooses.

• One lingering non-sexual hug.

• One bath with pre-lit candles surrounding the tub.

• One evening out alone with no home responsibilities.

• One video rental evening with a romantic movie featured.

• One half-hour talk where the bearer can give you feedback (gently, not with criticism, otherwise the coupon is invalid).

• One evening out with the bearer having total control over the choice and nature of the activity.

• One gourmet meal prepared or ordered in by you.

• One instance when you will answer the question, “What are you thinking about right now?”

• One instance where you will openly answer the question, “What are you feeling right now?”

• One stroll or walk, holding hands or arm-in-arm.

• One trip in the car where you will slow down when asked.

• One evening at home with music and slow dancing.

I think you get the gist of what this booklet should consist of. If you’re asking why do this, you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that it’s in your own best interest.

If you stop and think about how much time and energy you devote to nurturing the quality of your primary relationship, you’ll likely notice that career, children, general maintenance and other responsibilities often take precedence. Evidence is mounting that shows a quality connection with a significant other may improve cardiac health.

Simple reminders to your partner that you love her or that she appeals to you, given regularly, tend to draw your partner closer to you and lessen conflict. You’re probably aware how much conflict at home can raise blood pressure, interfere with concentration and kill sexual relations.

Many couples say that positive comments back and forth are rare, they complain of feeling taken for granted and as a result feel stressed.

Conflicts could be avoided if a reservoir of goodwill is established and fed.

When people know they are cared about, valued and listened to, they can withstand the many ups and downs associated with living. If you put time and effort into your love connection, the dividends are endless.

Should there be a similar coupon book by women? Of course—I’m focusing on men first because I’d like you to be a hero at Valentine’s, and because, generally speaking, women are more sensitive to the emotional climate in a relationship.

Romantic acts and attitudes should be part of the behavioral repertoire of both genders, but men could work harder in this area. When there’s a solid connection between couples, the quality of life increases. Great times, great sex, lots of laughs combined with a sense of closeness and belonging are a tonic for healthy living.

The above list and article is simple, yet important to encourage us to be intentional in showing love to each other, both on Valentines Day, “Just Because I Love You” Celebration Days and every day.

But to help you further, below are a few web site links to additional Crosswalk.com articles and ideas you can glean through and possibly use and learn from as well:

• VALENTINE’S DAY: Let Christ’s Love Fuel Your Marriage

• THE OPPORTUNITY OF VALENTINE’S DAY

• TAKE PRESSURE OFF THIS VALENTINE’S DAY

• CONCERNING FLOWERS: Tips from a Valentine’s Professional

• INEXPENSIVE WAYS TO HONOR SPOUSE THIS VALENTINE’S DAY

We hope this gives a “jump start” to a great Valentines Day this year. If you have any other suggestions, please pass share them in the Comment section below so we can ALL benefit from what you’ve learned.

Our love and prayers are with you as together we work to make our marriages the best they can be to the glory of God!

Steve and Cindy Wright

“I sensed Christ saying to me, ‘When you love your wife, you love me. When you care for your wife, you care for me. When you bless your wife, you bless me.” …”As you give to your spouse, even when you are hurting, you become a conduit for God’s glory in your relationship.” …”I believe that when we meet the needs of our spouse, Christ gets even more out of our relationship than we do!” (Dr David Ferguson)

The above statement is a conclusion that Dr Ferguson wrote about, after God dealt with him, concerning the way he was interacting with his wife. He never understood the connection between what Jesus was stating in Matthew 25:40-46, and how he should treat his wife, until that time.

In essence, the Lord was telling David (and us as well) that when we give of ourselves to our spouse, we’re also giving of ourselves to God, and we’re bringing pleasure to His heart as well —magnifying God’s glory in our relationship.

For the rest of this message, we’d like to share with you a portion of the terrific book, “Never Alone” (which unfortunately, is no longer in publication), written by David and Teresa Ferguson. Relating to the above topic, David writes:

One area my wife and I have clashed over repeatedly in our marriage is our traveling. Whenever we leave on a trip, Teresa insists that we get to the airport early, giving plenty of time to park and get to the gate a full hour before our scheduled departure.

I take a much more casual approach, figuring that if the plane is supposed to leave at 9 A.M., we don’t need to be there until 8:55 to walk on and sit down. (This was obviously written before 9/11 and the changes that have come about as a result.) To me, an hour lingering in the airport boarding area is an hour of productive time wasted. So every trip renewed this conflict.

For years I argued with Teresa about what I regarded as her paranoid approach to travel. But all my logic did nothing to meet her need, and the unresolved conflict and pain hindered our intimacy.

As I began to welcome Christ as my colleague and companion in loving Teresa, God began to speak to me about this issue. Our dialogue might be characterized by something like this, based on what he was teaching me from Matthew 25:40:

Jesus: “I needed to get to the airport early, but you would not take me.”

David: “Lord, when did you need to get to the airport early and I did not take you?”

Jesus: “Every time you ignored Teresa’s need for security and failed to get her to the airport early, you did it to me.”

God’s convicting word to my heart produced a sense of brokenness. Not only had I hurt and disappointed my wife by failing to love her as she needed to be loved, I had hurt and disappointed the Savior. I began to see the issue differently. I wondered if my effort to get to the airport would not only bless my dearest one but in some mysterious way even bless our God.

“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard, God,” I thought. “We don’t have to be at the airport so early. The plane won’t leave without us. If our luggage gets lost, they’ll find it and deliver it to us. It’s no big deal. But if this is the path to loving Teresa and blessing you I guess I should head that way even though it seems like a waste of time.”

So we started leaving for the airport when Teresa wanted to leave. We were able to park, check in at the gate, and get our boarding passes in plenty of time. Teresa was thrilled, and I sensed God’s pleasure in simply giving to meet her need. But as I sat down in the boarding area for up to an hour, at times it still felt as if I was wasting valuable ministry time.

But something glorious began to happen. God took those hours in the airport and began to transform them into some of the sweetest times of insight, wonder, and worship I have ever experienced. A great deal of the biblical revelation I have shared recently in conferences and training sessions came to me while sitting in airports.

There was something wonderfully mysterious about it, as if the Lord was saying, “You thought this would be wasted time. But you gave of yourself to meet Teresa’s need. And by allowing her more time at the airport, you and I have more time at the airport. By your glorifying me through giving, I let my glory overflow to you.”

David continued to share other great insights but at the conclusion of this chapter David wrote,

God desires glory out of your marriage: the glory of giving to meet needs, the glory of unconditional love, and the glory of faith. But even if you’re struggling and discouraged in your marriage because your needs are not being fully met, God can still receive glory in your marriage when you glorify Him in the midst of your troubles. As you lift up your heart to give thanks, praise, and adoration to God even when your marriage is less than you desire, He is glorified.

And the more you express gratitude and praise for His faithfulness, caring love, compassion, and power, the more your faith will increase and be strengthened.

We couldn’t have said it better. Somehow, we often fail to treat our spouse with the same courtesy that we treat our neighbor, co-worker, or even a stranger. In Mark 12:30-31, it is recorded that when asked the question “of all the commandments, which is the most important,” Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.“

The question we want to ask you (and challenge ourselves with as well) is: do you think that God wants us to treat our “neighbor” and our co-workers better than our spouse — the one who is to be our marriage partner to whom we are to “cleave to as one?”

Pray and think about it and ask God to show you what you can specifically do in the future to better honor God and love your spouse as He does. If He shows you that you owe your spouse an apology for any past hurtful behavior, please do so. Showing love and preference to your spouse is a way of showing love and preference to your God.

May God bless as you work to make your marriage the best it can be, to the glory of God. 
Steve and Cindy Wright

(The following insightful article about marriage, titled, “The Leah and Rachel Deception,” appeared on a Jewish email list that was sent to us by Smart Marriages.com. This is an edited version —to read this article in its entirety go to www.smartmarriages.com. As they say, “If you aren’t Jewish or a person who studies the Bible, there might be a few words you won’t understand, but trust us, this applies to all marriages, Jewish, Christian, or other!” The message is POWERFUL!)

The author, Yosef Y. Jacobson writes:

It’s difficult not to sympathize with the patriarch, Jacob, who becomes the victim of a last minute switch by his father-in-law, who tricks him into marrying the wrong woman (See Genesis 29). Laban had 2 daughters, Leah and Rachel. “Leah had weak eyes, while Rachel was shapely and beautiful.” Jacob loved Rachel and he offered to work 7 years for her.

When the 7 years were up, Laban substituted Leah for Rachel on the night of the wedding. Jacob discovered the deception only after he’d consummated the marriage with Leah. Jacob accepted his fate and remained with Leah. But he later also married Rachel, the bride of his choice, “and he loved Rachel more than Leah.”

Yet, at the end, it was Leah who became Jacob’s primary wife. Rachel died at a young age; so that most of Jacob’s married life was actually spent with Leah. In addition to this, it was Leah who mothered most of Jacob’s children, the future tribes of Israel and it was she, not Rachel, who ultimately was buried with Jacob in Hebron.

Why did this marriage—the marriage that formed the foundation of the Jewish nation, the marriage that produced every single Jew living since—have to come about in such an appalling manner? And why did Jacob have to go through this absurd experience?

The Veil: There’s a custom practiced during Jewish weddings known as the “bedeken,” or the veiling. Before the wedding ceremony, the groom goes to the room where his bride is sitting on a throne and he covers her face with a veil. Her face remains covered during the entire chupah ceremony.

One of the traditional explanations for this custom is that it commemorates the event that occurred during Jacob’s wedding ceremony. Since Jacob’s bride was veiled, he didn’t realize that he was marrying the wrong woman. But if that’s the reason, shouldn’t the custom be that the groom uncovers his bride’s face to make sure that he’s marrying the bride of his choice? Why are we commemorating at each of our weddings this terrible episode that occurred to poor Jacob?

War and Peace: In the writings of kabbalah, Leah and Rachel represent two dimensions existing in each of our spouses, women and men alike. Rachel, “the shapely and beautiful sister,” embodies the attractive, charming and romantic features of our spouse. In fact, in Hebrew Rachel means “ewe,” an animal characterized by its bright white color and its serene and lovable nature.

Leah, a name that literally means “one, who is weary,” represents those elements in our spouse that are more complicated, perplexing and disturbing. Leah, the weak-eyed sister, weakened from tears and anxiety, embodies our continuous and exhausting struggle with the dark demons and ugly impulses in our lives.

Thus, in Chassidic writings Rachel is associated with the tzaddik-personality, while Leah is associated with the baal-teshuvah (the penitent) figure. The tzaddik is the pure and sacred human being, reflecting the harmony and goodness of his creator. The baal-teshuvah, on the other hand, embodies the tumultuous individual who must continuously battle the negative urges and destructive habits rooted in his or her psyche.

The drama that occurred at the wedding of the father of the Jewish people occurs at almost every wedding. When you get married, you may think that you’re marrying Rachel: the comely, perfect and fictitious spouse that you chose in your dreams. But in reality, you’re bound to discover that you ended up with Leah, a human being possessing layers of unresolved wounds and tension.

Initially you may love and appreciate only the Rachel dimension of your marriage partner and despise the Leah part of that individual, yet as life progresses you’ll come to discover that it’s precisely the Leah dimension of your spouse, more than anything else, that was always meant for your soul. Because it’s the shortcomings and imperfections of your spouse that challenge you to transcend your ego and become the person you are capable of being.

Creating a Space: That’s the secret behind the veiling. When the groom veils his bride, he’s essentially stating that “I will love and respect not only the ‘you’ who is presently visible to me, but also the ‘you’ that is still concealed from me and might emerge only later. I’m committed not just to the ‘Rachel’ in you, but also to the ‘Leah’ in you.” “As I bond with you in marriage,” the groom is saying, “I’m creating a space within me to accept and nurture the totality of your being.”

Well, did you gain some new insight into a very familiar story? We sure did. This story reinforces a truth we once heard: “People are not what we wish them to be or what they seem to be. They are what they are.”

May we see our spouse and love our spouse as God does! As we’re told in 1 Samuel 16:6-7, “…The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” — which should be an example to us all.

“Be imitators of God. as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

May we never forget to make it our mission to join God in expressing His love to our spouse! It’s a mission field He’s entrusting to our care.

To understand this a little clearer, please click onto the article written by Pastor Rick Warren, “The Purpose-Driven Marriage” …and may God help you to see your spouse and your marriage as He does, and desires for you, as well.

Steve and Cindy Wright

Originally, this message was titled, Why Women Leave Men, but in re-thinking this message it seems sensible to address why the “leaving” is happening on both the wives and the husband’s parts. Of course this message can’t be all inclusive, but hopefully it will shed light for some who are in the dark and promote good discussion — particularly in the comment section below this message.

Why do husbands and wives leave marriages they promised to be in for the rest of their lives? It’s simple — because they can. Sometimes leaving seems easier than staying committed and working things out. And lets face it, it’s easier to divorce in today’s world.

So, as we look at this subject, please understand we are going to address this in “general” terms as it will apply to MOST husbands and wives. We understand there are exceptions. And as you read this, first pray and ask God to show you what YOU should get from this and APPLY to your own life and marriage.

If you ask a woman why a wife would leave her marriage she’ll give answers like:

• “She feels lonely and abandoned”…
• “The only time he pays attention to her is when he wants something” (and we all know what the “something” is)…
• “He’s having an affair either emotionally,viewing pornography or physically…
• “She feels disconnected — that he doesn’t include her in important matters, or even unimportant matters”…
• “That he seems to care more about other things like TV than he does about her”

And the list goes on and on and on. But most of the reasons had to do with feelings and emotions.

Now, when you ask a man why a husband would leave his marriage, our first response is usually a blank stare followed by the words, “I dunno.” At least that was my first response. But I (Steve) was curious — I wanted to see what the “experts” had to say about the reasons men give for leaving their wives.

As I did an Internet search on this topic I discovered two things: First, there’s not much that addresses this side of the problem. And second, what I could find pretty much summed it all up in three categories:

1. Boredom. This is often expressed when he says, “I simply fell out of love” or something along that line…
2. Cheating. The husband discovers his wife is having an affair or he’s having an affair…
3. Other. This category is a “catch-all” for a number of different reasons men have given. These would include feeling disrespected or emasculated, mental problems, physical or sexual problems, child-bearing issues, personal habits, financial problems, etc.

Because we hear from so many husbands whose wives have left (and they don’t understand, “why”) and from so many wives who say they’re “fed up” and are about ready to walk out or have already left, we want to give you some insight from Dr. Willard Harley in a helpful article he wrote called, “Why Women Leave Men.” And while this focuses on the issue from a wife’s angle, you can see a husband’s perspective as well. Our prayer is that God will help us ALL learn from what Dr. Harley shares.

Harley writes,

“Each day I’m confronted by women who are extremely frustrated with their marriages. Usually, they express no hope that their husbands will ever understand what it is that frustrates them—let alone change enough to solve the problem. From their perspective, marital problems are created by their husbands who do little or nothing to solve them. Wives tend to see themselves as the major force for resolving conflicts, and when they give up their effort, the marriage is usually over.

“When I talk to their husbands, they usually have a different explanation as to why their wives feel the way they do. They often feel that the expectations of women in general and their wives in particular, have grown completely out of reach. These men, who feel that they’ve made a gigantic effort to be caring and sensitive to their wives, get no credit whatsoever for their sizable contribution to the family. They feel under enormous pressure to improve their financial support, improve the way they raise their children, and improve the way they treat their wives. Many men I see are emotionally exhausted and fell that for all their effort, they get nothing but criticism.

“Men’s perceived failure to satisfy their wives is punctuated by the fact that women file for divorce twice as much as men. In other words, their unhappiness with marriage often results in divorce. The most common reason women give for leaving their husband’s is ‘mental cruelty.’ When legal grounds for divorce are stated, about half report they’ve been emotionally abused. But the mental cruelty they describe is rarely the result of their husbands efforts to drive them crazy. It’s usually husbands being indifferent, failing to communicate and demonstrating forms of neglect.

“When all forms of spousal neglect are grouped together, we find it’s far ahead of all other reasons combined that women leave men. Surprisingly few women divorce because of physical abuse, infidelity, alcoholism, criminal behavior, or other serious grounds. In fact, I find myself bewildered by women in serious physical danger refusing to leave the men that threaten their safety. Simply stated, women leave men when they’re neglected. Neglect accounts for almost all reasons women leave and divorce men.”

Harley continues,

“…Some of the most common complaints I hear from women is, “He ignores me except when he wants sex, he sits and watches television when he could be talking to me, he rarely calls to see how I’m doing, he hurts my feelings and never apologizes; Instead, he tells me I’m too sensitive.” Most husbands are mystified by these complaints. They feel their wives demand too much, and that most other women would be ecstatic to be married to them. Their wives have become spoiled, take their efforts for granted and have unrealistic expectations.

“Do women expect too much from their husbands or are men doing less for their wives than they should?” (To continue to read more of this article and solutions Dr Harley gives, please click onto “Why Women Leave Men.”)

Cindy and I answer Harley’s question with a “Yes and Yes!” We have found that both husbands and wives come into marriage with unrealistic (and often, unexpressed) expectations which set them up later for big problems as illustrated above. It’s not difficult to “trash” your marriage, as you can read in the following article “Trash Your Marriage” (which will also give you ways to ways to clean it up).

At one time or another in our nearly 38 years of marriage we’ve both been guilty of much of what Dr. Harley described. Cindy would readily admit that she expected too much from me and, sadly, I was neglectful of many of her needs, not realizing how important they were to her.

To us, the bigger question relating to this subject is, “How can we change the pattern of divorce that is so pervasive in the Christian church today?” I think we found an answer simply stated in this quote from Walt Henrichsen in his devotional titled, Thoughts From The Diary Of A Desperate Man:

“You can do two things that most people cannot resist, love and serve them. Loving and serving is a ministry and you do not need special gifts to do it.”

Think about that this week. It goes with the scriptures,

“You were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Galatians 5:13-15).

And how much closer of a neighbor can you get than a spouse? So, how can you love and serve each other? If you want or need some help, make marriage your marriage your mission and look around our web site  to see what you can find that will help you. Be intentional in working to make your marriage the best it can be.

Also, here’s another article by Dr Harley that you might read through and apply to your marriage: “Fall in Love, Stay in Love.”

And go into the Romantic Ideas section read the articles, “100 Ways to Show Love to Your Wife HER Way,” and “100 Ways to Show Love to Your Husband HIS Way.” You might find it could help you come up with ideas to love and serve your spouse as God intends.

Steve and Cindy Wright

“This is not to suggest that children and parents should cut off their relationship under the guise of leaving and cleaving. But your primary human relationship now is with your spouse, not your parents. Your commitment to God comes first; then your bond to your spouse, then to any children you might have, then to your family of origin, and then to extended family and friends” (Sandra Lundberg, from the book, The First Five Years of Marriage).

This also doesn’t mean we stop honoring our family members. The importance they still have in our spouse’s heart shouldn’t be underestimated. But the influential role they once held in our decisions is to change.

If this hasn’t been the case in your marriage up to this point, this can be a time of “NEW BEGINNINGS” in your relationship with your spouse and his or her family “from this day forward” where you make the necessary changes and stand by them together. With this in mind, we hope you will prayerfully consider the following thoughts, from an article titled “In Laws or Out Laws,” written by Dr Randy Carlson www.theintentionallife.com. He writes:

“Lately on [our radio program], I’ve been hearing from more people than ever about the difficulties they’re having in their marriages dealing with their mothers-in-law or fathers-in-law. The complaints vary. For one caller, it’s his father-in-law that’s showing favoritism for one grandchild over the other. Another person gets angry because her mother-in-law is always trying to control her husband.

“For many couples, it’s the in-laws that simply won’t let go of their children and let them grow up. They constantly give unwanted advice on parenting, finances—even church. And then there’s the concern about in-laws who are not believers, who are having a negative influence on their grandchildren.

“Whatever the circumstance, the way to overcome the conflict is through communication. But far too often, the husband or wife is afraid to confront their parents, or worse yet, just prefer to sweep the problems under the rug and pretend they don’t exist.

“In the meantime, resentment and anger builds to the point that the easiest solution is just to stay away from the meddling in-laws, thereby depriving their children of an important and foundational family relationship —their grandparents.

“Here are three practical tips to help you deal with your in-law outlaws in a way that will glorify God and move your family toward healing, closeness and renewed trust.

1. “Your in-laws are not the enemy: Couples need to start with a little self-analysis. If you see your in-laws as the enemy, you’ll never get anywhere with them. No matter how troublesome they seem, you need to take the lead in working toward solving the problems.

“One thing that might help is to remember that your mother or father-in law is different from your parents. You cannot compare the two, because in most cases your in-laws will come up short. Therefore, you need to get to know them for who they are, not for what you want them to be.

2. “The biological connection: If a wife has a problem with her husband’s parents, it is the responsibility of the husband to bring that issue before his parents—no matter how uncomfortable that may be. Truth is, the biological child will generally carry more credibility with his or her own parents, and should discern how to best communicate with them. It is then vital that the biological husband or wife lovingly but firmly defends his or her spouse and family.

3. “Stay unified: Finally, couples need to be 100 per cent unified in their communication with their in-laws. It’s important for the mother or father-in-law to sense that there is no way they can possibly use their parental influence on their own child to try and drive a wedge in their marriage or in their role as parents.

“How can you do this while keeping the Biblical command to, ‘Honor your father and mother?’ By understanding and then communicating God’s design for families as established in the second chapter of Genesis. ‘A man will leave his father and mother,’ verse 24 says, ‘and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.’

“When you marry, you are to ‘leave’ your parental home and ‘cleave’ to your spouse and build a new home—with rules, expectations and goals set by you, not your parents. As a couple, you set clear boundaries regarding how you will maintain your relationship with your in-laws, and how you will communicate this to them.

“In fact, it’s best to do this when you’re engaged so that the expectations of both you and your in-laws are established before marriage and parenting enters the picture.

“Special relationship dynamics do exist when your in-laws are not believers in Christ. First, you must remember that it is still vitally important to nurture your relationship with your unsaved in-laws, especially when grandchildren are involved. But, as a couple, you need to stay sensitive to spiritual issues.

“If your non-Christian in-laws are prone to use obscene language, live a carnal lifestyle, or try to directly influence you and your children against Christian beliefs, you need to step in and address the situation as lovingly as you can.

“Your goal here is not to change your in-laws, but to get them to alter their behavior as needed to protect your children and marriage as you see fit. But in extreme cases, where the mother- or father-in-law is an alcoholic, addicted to drugs, or is violent, you must draw the line to safeguard your family. Be sure to also communicate to your children what is happening with their grandparents and encourage them to pray for the situation.

“In-law parents and grandparents are important members of your family. Even though your marriage and role as parents is now the priority, wise couples will do everything they can to ensure they have a long and healthy relationship with their in-laws. Communication is the key to making that happen.”

To help you further on this issue, we have numerous articles, quotes, testimonies, and available comment sections dedicated to “Dealing with Parents” and “In Laws” posted on this web site.

Plus, below there are several links to web site articles which you may want to read that could help you further with this issue:

• WHEN FATHER-IN-LAW DOESN’T KNOW BEST

• HOW TO MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR MOTHER-IN-LAW

• DEVELOPING INTERGENERATIONAL LOVE

We hope all of this helps you to set your marriage in God’s order.
Cindy and Steve Wright

“Ever since the Internet has become a regular part of the human experience, cyberspace has been implicated as an accomplice in online affairs, real life adultery, and the break-up marriages. With every new online fad have come the stories of spouses wandering away from their marriage to a new cyber love interest.  Media has spotlighted tales and trends of online affairs starting through chat rooms, MySpace, Second Life, websites and online forums. Is Facebook, the world’s fastest growing online social network, just another in a long list of cyber threats to your marriage?

“Having been active Facebook users for a while and experiencing the good, the bad, and the ugly of participating in an online social network, we recognize there are potential threats to your relationship.  But the ultimate threat is not the latest technology … it is the choices you make online and offline … in cyberspace and real life” (K Jason Krafsky).

To that we say AMEN, AMEN, and AMEN! And we include cell phone and Internet use on that poor choices list.

There’s an article written on a computer web site that tells of some of the divorces going on because of Facebook and other internet “community” choices that spouses are making. You might find it helpful to read what’s going on concerning this area of our married lives. Please click onto the following web site link to read:

• MARRIAGE ON THE ROCKS? Better Stay Off Facebook

We can’t even BEGIN to tell you the number of related emails, testimonies, and postings on the Marriage Missions web site that we’ve heard and read where spouses are crying and screaming out because of the choices their partners are making which are destroying their marriages. It’s almost at epidemic proportions. Most of these are good Christians who put a toe in the pool of temptation and then eventually dive in completely, afterward confessing, “I/we never meant for this to happen.” Yet it did and it does. And as a result innocent hearts are breaking.

This is a wake up call, we MUST protect our marriages from the sneakiness and secrecy that is going on, centering around Internet and cell phones, that is destroying relationships everywhere. We can’t ignore that which is so insidious and pervasive!

In the great article, “Is Facebook a Cyber Threat to Your Marriage” by Jason and Kelli Krafsky, Jason tells how his own “home was devastated by sexual morality” when he was a young boy, which motivated him to set boundaries in his own life “to protect” his future marriage. He and his wife have live by those and additional principles to establish “personal boundaries as a part of everyday life with friends, co-workers, clients, and extended family members” to safeguard that which is most important to them.

Steve and I pledged years ago and work hard to do the same. Our marriage is too important to us and to God to do any less. You’ll find several articles on this web site in the “Extramarital Affair” and “Emotional Infidelity” sections that can help you to do the same as well as recommended resources such as the book “ Hedges: Loving Your Marriage Enough to Protect It” by Jerry Jenkins.

In the above mentioned article, Jason and Kelli also wrote,

“In the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi 2 talks about setting up a protective perimeter around the covenant relationship, ‘And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you. Don’t cheat on your spouse. ‘I hate divorce’ says the God of Israel… ‘I hate the violent dismembering the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.’ So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat’ (The Message).

“One of the boundaries we set up as a perimeter around our relationship is that neither of us will be alone with someone of the opposite sex. Not because we’re worried about the other cheating, but to avoid the appearance of impropriety or being caught in a potential he said/she said situation. We’ve heard too many stories of how an accusation (some true, some false) has tarnished a reputation or ended a career. Being active Facebookers, we’ve adopted our real life set of boundaries for our online world with Facebook friends.”

Jason then went on to give “Five Ways to Diffuse the Cyber Threats to Your Marriage.” There is more in the article but here is his shortened list:

“(1) Set Safeguards With Your Mate – Discuss with your mate: What FaceBook friends and groups are inbounds or out-of-bounds?
(2) Don’t Post Negative Things About Your Spouse
(3) Choose Your Friends Wisely
(4) Play it Smart With Who You Talk About What With
(5) If in Doubt, De-friend Them.” Great boundaries!”

There are additional rules that can help you safeguard your marriage. Because as Chris Gersten states,

“The Internet can pose a significant threat to any relationship if misused. The Internet has led to a dramatic increase in use of pornography, which can become habitual, even addictive behavior that will have a negative impact on your own relationship with your partner. In addition, the Internet allows individuals to make contact with strangers and encourages inappropriate intimacy.”

To read more and veiw a “set of rules” that can help couples “avoid the trauma that comes from discovering hidden relationships and porn use on the computer” please click onto the web site link to read:

• INTERNET RULES FOR COUPLES

In another article titled, “Our Top Dozen Do’s and Don’ts for Facebooking Couples” which Jason and Kelli Krafsky posted on their web site, they give the following list (with added details in their article):

“What Every Facebooking Couple Should DO to Protect Their Marriage:

•  Create boundaries to protect yourself, your spouse and your marriage.
•  Set your relationship status to Married and keep it that way. 
•  Update each other on your FaceBook Friends and Friend Requests. 
•  Share your username and password with one another.
•  Make your spouse the topic of your Status Updates at least once a week.
•  Be Prepared to talk offline about online issues.”

And then there is:

“What Every Facebooking Couple Should NOT DO to Protect Their Marriage:

•  (DON’T) Write cutting remarks or negative statements about your spouse.
•  (DON’T) Friend exes, old flames, past flings, former crushes or anyone you’ve been intimate with in the past.
•  (DON’T) Lose track of how much time you spend on Facebook.
•  (DON’T) Report that you or your spouse is out of town.
•  (DON’T) Have private Chat sessions with people of the opposite sex.
•  (DON’T) Let Facebook be a distraction during your time with your mate.”

As you look at the lists above most all of these principles can be applied to other Internet and Cell Phone activities in various ways. “Create boundaries to protect yourself, your spouse and your marriage.” It’s the secrecy matter and the poor choices that spouses are making in HOW they use their time and WITH WHOM, which threatens peace and sanctity in marriages today.

“Thanks to cell phones, we can always reach out and touch someone. But, is that touch a caress or a slap? When we need them, cell phones can literally be a lifesaver. At other times, they create an unwelcome interruption” (Lynn Jordan).

Isn’t that true? Cell phones can be a helpful or a disruptive communication tool. You can use them to connect with your spouse (where you call, text, or email each other as additional ways to show you’re thinking about him or her). Cell phones can also become problematic and can become a device that causes you to disconnect with each other (where feelings such as “you aren’t paying attention to me” or “you prefer spending more time on your phone instead of with me” can arise).

And then there’s the whole “private” thing where calls can be made and/or taken in secrecy. Some spouses keep cell phones to themselves, warning that they’re “off limits” to their mate (or they purchase them without letting their wife/husband know so secrecy and falling into or deliberately giving into sexual temptation is easier).

This type of behavior is a HUGE red flag that something is wrong in the marriage. If a spouse doesn’t have anything to hide, he or she won’t need to hide anything. Cell phone and computer privacy shouldn’t be an issue for a couple that are supposed to “be one.” Jesus makes this point when he said,

“‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate’” (Matthew 19:4-6).

So, with that in mind, so you don’t “separate” that which God joined together when you married and you build a marriage where each of you shows you are a trustworthy partner, the following is good advice:

“There are many steps couples can take to shield their marriage from secrecy and infidelity, Mr [Willard] Harley told me recently. For instance, couples should have each other’s cell-phone and e-mail information ‘at their disposal.’ If there already has been an infidelity problem, a couple should review e-mails together before erasing the, he said. ‘Trust, to me, is earned, not assumed.’” (Cheryl Wetzstein, from the July, 26,2009 Washington Times article “Trust and the Kitchen Sink”)

Again, we refer to something Jason Krafsky wrote:

“Keep in mind the words from Hebrews 13, ‘Honor marriage, and guard the sacredness of sexual intimacy between wife and husband. God draws a firm line against casual and illicit sex” (The Message). “While Facebook is becoming one of the most popular gathering places on the Internet, it doesn’t have to be a threat to your marriage [and neither do cell phones]. Marriages are vulnerable to all kinds of online and real-life threats because the couples have failed to set up proper boundaries of protection and accountability.

“And while nothing is completely foolproof, these principles are practical tips to help you protect your most important and cherished relationship. Ultimately, it is up to you to make good decisions and wise choices and to have open lines of communication with your mate …whether you’re online or not.”

If you’re considering marriage, PLEASE discuss this issue NOW to make sure you’re both in agreement as far as the boundaries you will put into place to protect your marriage. Marriage is to be a lifetime commitment lived together with God, so make sure you’re uniting yourself with an honorable partner who will openly work together with you in this mission.

And if you’re already married, PLEASE try to work with your spouse to protect your relationship now while you can, if you can. Bring things out into the open and keep them there. Trouble grows in darkness and secrecy. It can be the enemy of our faith’s playground.

If your spouse WON’T work with you to protect your marriage and stop secrecy, pray, pray, pray and keep asking God for wisdom. You do and will need the help and guidance of our Wonderful Counselor, the Holy Spirit.

“May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (Romans 15:5-6)

May God bless you in this mission,
Cindy and Steve Wright

A brand new year is here [well, almost] and with it comes a lot of New Year resolutions. As Christians, there is no greater place to start than within your own marriage. How is your relationship with your spouse?

Here are 7 ways to totally wreak havoc in your Christian marriage:

1. MAKE MOUNTAINS OUT OF MOLE HILLS. Marriages are filled with a lot of joys, sorrows, and irritations along the way. Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between a mountain and a molehill. Mountains are those things that are worth taking a stand, while molehills are more like minor irritations. Mountains are very large and immovable. Molehills are small irritating piles of dirt that are easily smoothed over.

If you’re having difficulty distinguishing between a mountain and a molehill, ask yourself if this issue is worth taking time out of your day to discuss with your spouse.

2. YELL AT ONE ANOTHER. The quickest way to destroy communication in your Christian marriage is to yell at one another. Proverbs 18:21 states, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” Such power the tongue has! Are you using yours for life or death in your relationship with your spouse?

3. BUILD EMOTIONAL WALLS. Emotional walls steal the intimacy in a marriage. And Christian marriages are not free from them. In fact, every marriage has them from time to time because we are imperfect humans.

Yet, the difference between a healthy relationship and unhealthy one is what you do with the emotional walls. Do you choose to keep your emotional walls, thereby building them higher? Or do you allow communication and forgiveness to help tear them down?

4. IGNORE YOUR PROBLEMS. Avoidance and denial are two crucial ingredients to destroying any Christian marriage. They go together with the adage “If we don’t face it, then it doesn’t exist” or “Don’t rock the boat.”

Conflict avoidance will take your marriage down the pathway to such great destinations of Misunderstanding, Distrust, and Resentment. Where as facing your problems can take you to such resorts as Forgiveness, Intimacy and Happiness.

5. HOLD ON TO RESENTMENT. Resentment paralyzes a martial relationship. It serves as a catalyst for distance, lack of communication, and bitterness between spouses. If you want a relationship filled with bitterness, plant the seed of resentment and nurture it with an unforgiving spirit.

6. STORE UP AMMUNITION FOR YOUR NEXT ARGUMENT. Long before popular psychology came into existence, the Apostle Paul penned an award winner definition for Christian love. It is found in I Corinthians 13:5, “…it does not keep a record of wrongs…”

Today some may call this “letting go” or “forgiveness.” Regardless of what it is called, as Christians we are encouraged to not keep a running tally list of the offenses our spouses have committed against us.

7. NEVER ASK FOR FORGIVENESS. As humans, it feels so much better to point out others’ faults rather than admit our own. Yet, marriage is about having the maturity to first ask for forgiveness for how we’ve hurt our spouse, rather than demanding their asking us for forgiveness.

Now that we’ve become aware of 7 ways to cause problems in our marriage (from an article titled “Christian Marriage Blunders: How to Wreak Havoc in Your Marriage” written by Terre Grable, posted on the web site Articlebase.com), lets look at 7 ways to HELP your marriage:

1. CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES WISELY. Beware of magnifying the small stuff; it can bring down your relationship in big ways. “Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking; it is not easily angered; it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5) “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense” (Proverbs 19:11). “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Galatians 5:15).

2. “SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE” – DON’T YELL IT. Screaming at each other sabotages communication. It also slams your spouse’s ears shut and puts him or her on the defensive. Instead of working to build relationship bridges, each person is busy defending their “side.” “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Ephesians 4:31). “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control” (Proverbs 29:11). “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools” (Ecclesiastes 9:17).

3. WORK TO BUILD RELATIONSHIP BRIDGES RATHER THAN WALLS IN YOUR MARRIAGE. Life (with the emotional baggage and differing expectations you bring into marriage) has a way of dividing you physically and emotionally. “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3). “Let us make every effort to do what leads to peace and mutual edification” (Romans 12:18).

4. DEAL WITH RATHER THAN BURY PROBLEMS. If you ignore them, they could fester with time and cause more trouble than you would have had in the first place. “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge; the ears of the wise seek it out” (Proverbs 18:15). “Each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor [spouse], for we are all members of one body. In your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:25-27).

5. RELEASE RESENTMENT. “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (Hebrews 12:14-15). “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:30-32).

6. YOUR SPOUSE IS NOT THE ENEMY, SO STOP TREATING HIM/HER AS SUCH. “The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the speech of the upright rescues them” (Proverbs 12:6). “I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:1-3)

7. WHEN WRONG, SINCERELY ASK FOR FORGIVENESS (whether your spouse is gracious in giving it or not). It’s the right thing to do. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace” (Colossians 3:12-15).

May your New Year together, as husband and wife, be blessed by God in amazing ways.

Cindy and Steve Wright

It’s difficult to be completely prepared for the flurry that occurs during Christmas and New Years celebrations. Those of us who are Born-again Believers know that JESUS is the reason for the season, and every season beyond. But we have to be careful and intentional concerning the mission of outreach the Lord brings our way or we can run past the Christ of Christmas as well.

Our utmost prayer for you, as it is for us —is that we won’t allow what’s MOST important to be ambushed by that which really won’t matter a hundred years from now. It’s easy to get caught up in the wrappings and trappings —all the superficial glitz, as well as the idealized sentimentality that’s presented to us through the media (which leads many people to depression).

Actually, there’s really nothing wrong with so much of the activity that goes on during this season; it can be a lot of fun and can give us great opportunities to witness and pour out the love of Christ (especially to those who are hurting in some way). Lets just make sure that as we take advantage of this “season” we don’t get distracted from “living Christ” and forget what’s REALLY important —celebrating the gift of Jesus Christ with those around us!

I’ve complained in recent years that the “world” is commercializing Christmas more and more and earlier and earlier. But author Ace Collins pointed out something important which I over-looked. He said, “Christmas is the only Christian holiday that is celebrated worldwide. Even in non-Christian countries. Therefore, by opening Christmas up for weeks and weeks and weeks, we have an open door as Christians, to talk about the real meaning of Christmas that much longer.”

Think about it. I know there’s debate going on concerning WHEN the event of Christ’s birth occurred (that it’s different from when we actually celebrate “Christmas” — to find out more, click onto the Crosswalk.com web site link to read, “Was Jesus Really Born on December 25th?“). And then there’s debate surrounding how the holiday of Christmas originated (some give it Christian originality and others a pagan one that Christians adopted to celebrate the time of Christ’s birth). (To find out more, please click onto the Crosswalk.com link to read: “Should Christians Celebrate Christmas and the Birth of Jesus Christ?“) We’ve heard convincing arguments from all sides. But isn’t there a more important point to all of this?

Doesn’t the entire Christmas “season” as well as the day we celebrate Christ’s birth give us opportunity to be a “light on a hill”? We’re told in Matthew 5:14-16, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Are you allowing the Light of Christ to shine through you in your home and wherever you go? God tells us in Galatians 6:9-10, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

Also in Colossians 4:5, “Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders and make the most of every opportunity.” And in Ephesians 5:15, “Be very careful how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.”

God tells us in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 10:23-24, “’Everything is permissible’ —but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible’ —but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.”

So, as you see opportunity this Christmas season, seek out “permissible” times that are “beneficial” to “do good” for others – including your marriage partner, and share the love of Christ wherever you are. Share Christ, live Christ, communicate the gospel with and without words. Don’t hide the Light of Christ —SHINE!

I love the title of a broadcast, which Ace Collins was involved in, titled, “Reclaiming Christmas”. We need to do that. We need to reclaim Christmas and allow God to have His rightful place. In this broadcast Ace said, “The key to Christmas is slowing down, stopping, looking around, and listening. And if you do those things you will change.” And frankly, so will the countenance of others as Christ ministers through you into their lives, to touch their hearts.

To read the transcripts or listen to the broadcast (and the following 2 broadcasts as well) where Ace Collins explains how to reclaim Christmas and appreciate the history behind many of the traditions surrounding this holiday, please click onto the following FamilyLife.com web site links:

• RECLAIMING CHRISTMAS (Part 1 of 3)

• BUILDING CHRISTMAS MEMORIES (Part 2 of 3)

• THE SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS OF CHRISTMAS (Part 3 of 3)

During this season, there is a lot of emphasis on gift-giving, but in reality, don’t you think the greatest gift you could share with them is the love of Christ —living out what God tells us in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

The following is a poem (author unknown) that could help you to celebrate Christmas God’s way. As you read the original poem we’ve added a few comments surrounded by parenthesis. We pray it’s a blessing to you!

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13—CHRISTMAS VERSION

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shining balls, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to family, I’m just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crystal snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child (and the husband).

Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband; (maybe even a “10 second kiss” —see Marriage Message #20 – Biblical rules for a Happy Marriage, rule #5.) (Also—to the husband: a great way to express love to your wife is to help with the decorating without grumbling. Just ask your wife, “What can I do that would help you the most?”)

Love is kind, though harried and tired. (Remember—if you’re too busy to be kind, you’re too busy!)

Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens. (There’s always a price to pay for everything, financially and sometimes relationally. If your decorating takes away from the peace and joy you’re to enjoy with your loved ones, is it really worth the cost? What do you believe Christ would have you do?)

Love doesn’t yell at the children to get out of the way, but is thankful they’re there to be in the way. (Will your children be able to look back and say, “I loved Christmas at home with my parents—it was such a happy, peaceful, and loving place!”?)

Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails.

Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, and golf clubs will rust. But giving the gift of love will endure. (It truly is “the gift that keeps on giving!”)

And concerning gift-giving and personalizing Christmas, you may find it helpful to read the following articles posted on Crosswalk.com. To do so, please click onto the links below to read:

• MANAGING THE COST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENTS

• MAKING CHRISTMAS PERSONAL

What if you took the scriptures concerning Love and the Fruits of the Spirit seriously and lived them out in your marriage and family life? Do you think your spouse would object to this gift? It may be a difficult one to give, but it sure is in keeping with that which God asks of us. “A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great” (Proverbs 18:16).

And who greater than God? And what greater gift is there to accept, than His son Jesus Christ? “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).

And what if you lived out and put intentionality into sharing the “fruit of the Spirit” with your family and those God brings into your life… do you think this would be a Christmas gift they would enjoy and cherish in years to come? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Yes, material gifts are nice, no doubt. But bringing “peace on earth” into your home by loving your spouse and family members as God loves them is a gift that is priceless! And finding ways to spread joy to others outside of your home, whether it’s a smile, or a compliment, a helping hand, a cheerful greeting or good-bye to a clerk could brighten up their day and make this season brighter for them as well.

Think about it. Pray about it. Make it your mission this Christmas and throughout the New Year to live Christ. And may your CHRISTmas be a blessed one!

Steve and Cindy Wright

“a selfless act performed by a person or persons wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual… There will generally be no reason other than to make people smile, or be happier” (Wikipedia.org).

Taking it a step further, how about carrying out random acts of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (inspired from Galatians 5:22-23) with and for your spouse? As Mary Ann Romans suggests:

“Why not take this whole random acts of kindness idea to your marriage? There are two ways and two benefits to doing this. First of all, you can practice these random acts of kindness together. Not only will you be blessing the lives of other people, but you will also strengthen your marriage by working together and coming face to face with the reality of how blessed you are.

“You can also practice random acts of kindness for your spouse. This is both easier and harder than it might seem. You probably already do a lot for your spouse, but what if you did some extra things without being asked or without telling? Perhaps you find a lost object, put gas in the car, make a favorite meal, etc. Aim to find at least one new random act of kindness that you can practice for your spouse each day.”

Concerning the “fruits of the Spirit”, you could fruitfully show “love” many ways. Steve blessed me the other day when he offered me a foot massage (knowing I had been up on my feet most of the day). How WONDERFUL! He also asked me the other morning, “What can I do that would be the MOST help to you?” My “Love Language” for sure! I’ve blessed him by randomly making things peaceful and relaxing within our home (when possible), and yet spark romance at other times.

There are a variety of ways to show your spouse love in a manner that he/she best understands it. As a matter of fact, on our web site we have “100 Ways to Show Love to Your Wife HER Way” and “100 Ways You Can Love Your Husband HIS Way” listed in the “Romantic Ideas” section which can help you come up with ideas.

Another fruit is “joy”, where you randomly bring little spots of joy into your spouse’s life. One way I do this with Steve is to look for things that are funny to share with him. Laughter really is “good medicine” (as the Bible says) — it’s good for us individually AND for our marriage. Life is hard, so it’s good to find ways to bring a smile to our spouse’s face whenever possible.

Concerning this “fruit of the Spirit” there’s a helpful article titled “10 Tips to Prepare for the 2009 Holiday Season” written by Jim Burns. In the second tip, Jim wrote:

“Remember the holiday season does not eliminate sadness or loneliness. Problems and difficulties arise even during the holiday season. And, for some, it evokes painful memories from recent events or the loss of loved ones in the past. Give room for yourself and your family to experience these feelings. Try not to let them become a consuming focus. Make an effort to work through present challenges and conflicts.”

My husband Steve helped me with this on Saturday as we were decorating for Christmas. We came across ornaments our (prodigal) sons had made for us years earlier in church. The memories were painful because they’re walking a different spiritual road at this time and we miss sharing and worshipping Christ together with them.

I also found an ornament that my brother Rick (who died several years ago) had made for me. On the ornament, he wrote, “A brother is someone who knows the song in your heart and sings it when you forget the words.” How I miss his “singing” on this side of heaven. As I shared this heartache with Steve, he held me in his arms and brought comfort. It lightened the load a bit and drew us closer together.

For tip number 3, Jim Burns wrote:

“Acknowledge the past, but look forward to the future. Life brings change. Each season of life is different. Determine to enjoy this holiday season for what it is. Acknowledging the past, whether it was good or bad, is appropriate. But, if you find that this year has been a rough one and you don’t anticipate having the best holiday season ever, try not to set yourself up by comparing today with the ‘good old days.’ Take advantage of the joys the present holiday season has to offer.”

We pray you will, despite the pain you may be experiencing.

I’ll go a step further. Look for ways to share joy. If you have a smile, share it. If you don’t, find one and give it away. Proverbs 11:25 states, “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” I saw this in author Barbara Johnson, who knew immense sorrow in her life, yet she made audiences laugh worldwide. I one time questioned her about it. I asked, “Barbara, how do you do it? How do you find the strength to help others laugh despite your painful life?” She pointed out that scripture and stated that when she made others laugh, she was refreshed as well. What a powerful truth!

So, even though your pain won’t go away, don’t let it eat you alive. Look for joy somehow and share it with your spouse and others, randomly. It will help them AND you.

Another “fruit of the Spirit” is “patience” — one of the fruits that most of us lack, but need the most. Sometimes when Steve goes shopping with me, he’ll take off his watch, so he won’t be as impatient. And I work not to try his patience as much by hurrying more than I would if he wasn’t with me. Ask God to show you specific ways to bless your spouse with this fruit.

For the fruit of “faithfulness” and “self-control”, refrain from using hurtful humor at your spouse’s expense. Also look for ways to guard your heart, assuring your spouse that you’re true to your wedding vow of loving, honoring and cherishing …to “have and to hold” to him or her alone. (We have articles to help you build hedges of protection in your marriage in the “Emotional Infidelity” and “Extramarital Affairs” sections of our web site.)

Even if your spouse has been unfaithful, ask God to help you not to fall into the trap of opening your heart to someone else. Stay faithful. “It is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

And then there is the fruit of “kindness”, “goodness” and “gentleness”. Look for ways to be kinder in your words and actions. Keep in mind that when you’re too busy to be kind, you’re too busy. Take a deep breath; regroup your thoughts, and ask God for help and possible short cuts.

“Make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins” (2 Peter 1:5-9).

“Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near” (Philippians 4:5). “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12-13).

In unity with Christ, let us look for ways to give the fruit of the Spirit in random acts of love this Christmas season and beyond. And may God bless you in these efforts!

Cindy and Steve Wright

“All marriages go through periods of disaffection, times when love feels distant, cold. What happens during these times will often set the course for the rest of the marriage.” (Tim Clinton)

Have you been there? We sure have, and who knows that we might not again if we don’t work on putting forth intentionality in building our love for each other? But thankfully, we’re doing well. And we pray that if you’re struggling, eventually you will be as well, knowing that marriage is so complex.

The following is something written by Tim and Julie Clinton, titled “How Disaffection Starts” —which was featured in Moody Magazine (which is no longer in print) a number of years ago. But what they write is still appropriate today:

“All marriages go through periods of disaffection, times when love feels distant, cold. What happens during these times will often set the course for the rest of the marriage. Unfortunately, disaffection often wins out and couples who get to the point of divorce never know God’s desire for their marriage. And many who stay in their marriages live unhappily behind closed doors.

But how does disaffection start? It actually begins with everyday life, with the six pressures we all face daily.

• STRESS —We’re pulled in every direction, busy and going nowhere fast, having to do more with less time. Before long, tempers flare, stomachs ache, hearts break. Hurried decisions become bad decisions. And bad decisions make people hurt.

Marriage becomes a perpetual uphill climb. And our hurt makes us irritable, discouraged, and very difficult to live with. Some have just flat-out been overwhelmed by life, wayward kids, financial pressures, loss, health problems, and demanding work schedules. Take an inventory. What stresses have been tearing at your relationship since you married?

• EVIL —Satan is the great confuser and the ultimate liar. He magnifies our weaknesses and fears and uses them as wedges that come between us. Peter described the evil one as a “roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). And he’s out to take as big a bite as he can out of your marriage.

• FALSE EXPECTATIONS —Here are a few of the most common: Marriage will complete me. —Life will be easy now. —My spouse won’t hurt me. —Love will keep us together.

Marriage brings together two people who have many human frailties that are at first magnified, then hopefully, in Christ, strengthened into godly traits. But it takes a lot of humility, grace, and constant work at understanding what’s reasonable for you and your spouse to expect from each other.

• SELFISHNESS —In our marriage we don’t really want to hurt each other. But we do. We fail each other. We say hurtful words. Marriage was designed to be a team effort, one of loving and giving, of making a commitment to our mate. But selfishness, so rampant in our culture, creates an “island of me,” when we should be sharing the “island of we.”

• SCRIPTS FROM THE PAST — A lot of our behavior is influenced by scripts that were written for us long ago. For instance, if one or both of our parents abandoned us when we were children, we’ll live today as if we expect those we love to abandon us in the here and now. We need, therefore, to look for those elements of our lives that are unresolved—physical, emotional, or sexual abuse; the effects of parental divorce. Then we need to deal with those losses and hurts in sound, biblical ways.

• SPEED —Intimacy takes time, but when we live in the fast lane, intimacy falls by the wayside. For example, maybe we think a date night will solve our problems. But what happens on date nights when things haven’t been going well? One lousy night! The result is loneliness, anger, feelings of rejection, and sorrow. A natural response to this pain is to create a gap between you and your partner—which can pave the way for destructive cycle of conflict and distancing.”

As we look upon the “disaffection” that occurs so easily in our marriages, especially in today’s world, we’re reminded of the scripture verse that says, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

How much this needs to be ingrained in our thinking and lifestyle choices! In my (Cindy’s) prayer time, as I was praying for my husband Steve, I came upon a prayer that’s so appropriate for today’s message. It reads:

“Lord, don’t let our marriage conform to the patterns of the world. Let us be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Let us abide in your will ALL of our days. So be it!”

Is that your prayer? We hope it is and recommend that you look over the pressures listed above and ask God to talk to your heart and show you if there is anything you can change that is causing darkness within your marriage. Work to be a “lamp lighter for Christ” poking holes in the darkness that the enemy of our faith works relentlessly to bring into your home.

To help you with whatever disaffection you may be experiencing, there is an additional article written by Dr Timothy Clinton that we recommend you read. Please click onto the following link to read: “Battling Disaffection in Marriage“.

Also, from the Crosswalk.com web site, please click onto the link to read: “Increase the Affection in Your Marriage”.

And on the MarriageBuilders.com web site, please click onto the link to read: “How to Meet the Need for Affection”.

As for your own “role” in all of this, during this Christmas season, as “peace on earth” is being emphasized, we encourage you to pray the words of the psalmist (Psalm 139:23-24), “Search me O God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.”

As We pray for you this week, “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:5-6).

Steve and Cindy Wright

So, to help you “reduce stress” — whether you’re the host/hostess, or the guest, we’ll share tips from some “experts” that you may be able to use. Glean what will work and disregard the rest (unless they’re points that God shows you to be truth, even if they are uncomfortable).

• ”Simplify your lifestyle. One of the leading causes of stress is that we try to cram too much into these days. Instead of watching your calender fill up, go ahead now and block out personal time, couple times, and family times. Then when that really nice invitation comes along, have the courage to say, ‘I’m so sorry we have a conflict.’ It is far easier to set boundaries before the commitments start to pile up” (Susan Yates, from FamilyLife.com article, “Three Ways to Relieve Stress Before the Holidays Arrive“).

• ”Whatever schedule conflicts you encounter, let them remind you to be grateful for the gift of time. Choose to focus on the people you are able to celebrate with, and use your time with them well… Let go of the stress you felt figuring out your plans and decide to be content with what you’re doing this holiday. [See Philippians 4:11.] Ask God to surprise you with moments of joy as you let go of your own agenda and live in the present moment” (Whitney Von Lake Hopler, from Crosswalk.com article “Don’t Invite Your Expectations to Thanksgiving“).

• ”If you are going to be spending a lot of time with family, be intentional about building in breaks for the family. The holidays can be a special time for families to be together, but you don’t need to overdose” (John Thurman, from Johnthurman.net article “Holiday Reduction Stress Tips“).

• ”No matter what embarrasses you, let it help you appreciate God’s grace more. Remember the many times you’ve messed up in life, only to have God keep loving you and forgiving you when you turn to let Him. Let your gratitude for God’s grace motivate you to forgive others who do or say something embarrassing. Know that your forgiveness will show them Christ’s love in action and possibly move lost family members closer to a relationship with Him.” (Whitney Von Lake Hopler, from Crosswalk.com article “Don’t Invite Your Expectations to Thanksgiving“).

• ”Remember, regardless of what your therapist says, the Christmas season is not about problem solving. Deal with family issues another time. You have to choose how you are going to feel. You do not have to be a slave to old memories” [See: 2 Corinthians 10:5-6] (John Thurman, from Johnthurman.net article “Holiday Reduction Stress Tips“).

• ”Think before you speak. Make a list of ‘topics to avoid.’ …Topics that are almost always safe: the weather, sports, gardening and the other person’s life. God gave us two ears and one mouth. Use your words to help others feel about themselves” [See: Hebrews 3:13 and Hebrews 10:24-25] (John Thurman, from Johnthurman.net article “Holiday Reduction Stress Tips“).

• ”Learn the Power of Pause. No matter how well you plan ahead, assume a positive attitude and acquire a sensible perspective. Anything can go awry. Learning to take a few deep breaths in the midst of a debacle opens a world of opportunities for you to grow and, in the process, teach others — especially children — invaluable lessons. Instead of becoming reactive and hastily assuming the worst when problems arise, simply pause. Creating a pause unlocks your creativity.” [See: 2 Timothy 2:23] (Hal Runkel, from the Growthtrac.com article “Practical Advice for a Scream Free Thanksgiving“).

• ”For stepfamilies — Gather on neutral ground — meet at a place that belongs to no one — include everyone that you can and avoid posturing and fighting” [See: Romans 14:19] (John Thurman, from Johnthurman.net article “Holiday Reduction Stress Tips“).

In closing, we’d also like to share with you a very condensed portion of a powerful Crosswalk.com article titled, “Holiday Family Gathering Coming Up? Let the Beatitudes Quell Your Attitudes“, written by John Shore (which we recommend you read in its entirety through the web site link provided above). In this article, John points out that Jesus teaches us in Matthew 5:3-12 some important principles that we can use to “be a blessing to ourselves and our families when we meet with them over the holidays”:

• ”BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT. We tend to go into family gatherings pretty keyed up. We feel intense, alert, super-sensitive to everything everybody says and does; when we hear, ‘You’re here!’ our senses kick fully on. But that’s exactly the opposite of being ‘poor in spirit’; that’s being TOO rich in spirit. At its core that’s all about ego. Before stepping into your family gathering, take a minute, take a breath, and fill yourself with the Holy Spirit. If there’s one thing Jesus showed us, it’s that it’s ALL about wanting and keeping nothing for yourself.

• ”BLESSED ARE THE MEEK. Don’t fight. Don’t provoke. …Don’t insist that your thoughts and opinions are given their full weight. Let every last bit of that go. Allow others to go before you. Let others have the floor. …If Jesus can sacrifice his life in order for you to be reconciled with God, you can surely sacrifice a bit of yourself in order to promote harmony within your family.

• ”BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS. Always look to, point at, emphasize, and celebrate the good. Forget everything else; for the time that you are with your family, allow all negativity to mean to you nothing whatsoever.

• ”BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL. No mystery here. Forgive, forgive, forgive till it hurts. Why shouldn’t you? You’re no angel. None of us is. We’ve all done more wrong things than there are numbers to count them… When it comes to our proper relationship to our family members, ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do,’ should be tattooed on our hearts.

• ”BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART. Don’t let the negative stay with you. When you see something that’s nasty or snarky or interested only in itself heading your way, step aside, and let it roll right past. Wave to it as it goes by —and then turn your attention back to the Holy Spirit within you. That is God —who, the Bible tells us, is LOVE.

• ”BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS. Show that the peace of the Lord is upon you by becoming the means by which others find peace between themselves… Let go of the wrong that tries to claim you as its own. Make peace.”

Good advice for us all, no matter what time of the year it is. “May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24)

Cindy and Steve Wright

He revealed to us that he and his wife didn’t have good role models, showing them how to treat each other in marriage. And then one day they noticed us, and how Steve and I interacted with each other. They liked what they saw and kept watching (we didn’t have the slightest idea this was happening). He told us that just from observing us (and being in a marriage class we eventually taught), they learned a lot and wanted us to know that we had blessed their lives.

After reading this, we cringed to think what they might have observed (after-all, we sure aren’t perfect), but somehow God painted a good picture because he wrote that he and his wife both said they “wanted a marriage just like ours.”

That letter, and similar comments we’ve received through the years, has made us aware that people notice more than we realize they do. How we conduct ourselves day in and day out is a picture we’re helping (or hindering) God paint in their minds as to what a Christian marriage looks like. Marriage is apparently designed to reflect the love of Christ to a world that needs to see this picture so they’ll reach out for more of what God has for them as a married couple. If we allow our lives to become non-reflective of the love of God, we’re missing the main point of why God designed marriage in the first place. It’s not about what we can get out of marriage, but what can GOD use within our lives to draw others to Himself.

It would be good to ask yourself: are others drawn to God as they observe how you interact with your spouse? Do they see Christ reflected in your words and actions? If not, today is a good day to start that journey back to line your heart and actions up with God’s. Our lives are a continual work in progress, that calls us to press on to “take hold” of all that Christ has for us (see Philippians 3:12-16). You may not be perfect, just as we aren’t, but together we can press on.

We came across an article in the November/December 2002 issue of Moody Monthly Magazine (which is no longer being published) which may help you to grab onto this concept further. Within this article, Elizabeth Cody Newenhuyse wrote the following:

“I applaud the desire for a strong and lasting marriage. But I’m not sure about this soul mate business. I fear [a spouse's] bright illusions will dissolve into dust the first time they have an argument about money or when she loses her job or he gets sick or either of them decides he or she wants to go to a different church.

“Even we spouses who are united in Christ have evenings when we just don’t have much to say to each other —those times when we think, ‘Why does he/she have to be like this?’ Soul mates always instinctively understand each other. Real marriage partners don’t. But real marriage partners try. And this is where we expect too little of marriage. Because a marriage wholly yielded to Christ can astonish us. Or, more precisely, God’s work in that marriage can astonish.

“A recurrent theme of Scripture shows a person or event displaying the work and power of God (Exodus 9:16, where we read of God’s call to Moses; John 9:3, Jesus’ healing of the man born blind; Romans 9:17, God’s saving mercy). Could it be that one reason God created marriage was because it’s an ideal canvas for Him to display His work through a man and a woman?

“Walter Wangerin has written eloquently about this in his book, ‘As for Me and My House.’ He tells of having grievously offended his wife, Thanne, through a series of hurts that heaped up over time, culminating in an evening game of Risk played with friends: ‘I leaned back and spread myself on my chair, feeling this to be a very good party. I made jokes. But I made them at Thanne’s expense, oblivious to their effect on her. And she saw how much of my very being belittled her. If she was dying, her husband wasn’t altogether blameless. He was killing her by small degrees and scorn.’

“Thanne withdraws emotionally, and Walt resigns himself to living without love in a house of chilly silences. ‘Thanne couldn’t forgive me,’ he writes. ‘This is a plain fact. I had broken her. Could a broken person be whole enough to forgive? No, Thanne was created finite, and couldn’t forgive me. But Jesus could.’

“One day Thanne came into his study, not angry. And she said, ‘Wally, will you hug me?’ ‘Dear Lord Jesus,’ Wangerin reflects, ‘where did this come from, this sudden, unnatural, undeserved willingness to let me touch her, hug her, love her? Not from me! I was her ruination. Not from her, but because I had killed that part of her. From You! This is God’s handiwork written large.’

“So what do we expect from marriage? From ourselves in the marriage? Fallibility. The need to forgive way beyond 70 times 7. Periods when we realize we don’t like the person we’re living with very much. Soul mate? Him? [Or her?] Yet this is the person God has entrusted to us.

“I’ve sometimes looked at Fritz wearing a garage-sale sweatshirt and thought, well, whether he’s the ‘one right person’ for me or not (a concept more romantic than scriptural), God loves him very much and thought enough of me to put Fritz into my care. Perhaps we need to ask God what He expects. Somehow, I don’t think His answers will surprise us.”

We challenge you to “ask God what He expects” of you in your marriage. He may ask you to exhibit tough love, or “speak the truth in love”, or live out sacrificial love, or love without measure, or extravagant, forgiving love that makes no worldly sense, but sense in the spiritual realm.

“Every husband and wife combination needs the healing touch of forgiveness. Where else could there be more opportunity to annoy, insult, offend, or ruffle another person that in the intimacy of married life when we’re constantly under foot, get in each other’s way, and have to share all things in common (whether we like it or not)? That’s just ordinary living, without taking into account the astonishing hurtful things husbands and wives do, which demands more forgiveness than any of us could work up on our own (Dr Ed Wheat, “The First Years of Forever”).

In our fallibility, may we remember to extend to our spouse, the same grace of God that has extended to us in the art of marriage.

Cindy and Steve Wright

One pastor we heard of, recommends to everyone he marries that they write out their wedding vows, frame them, and then display them somewhere in their home so they’ll continually be reminded what they promised each other. What an outstanding idea! Too often we forget what we promise each other on our wedding day —kind of like the man “who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets” (James 1:23-24). We often say our “I do’s” at the altar and then walk away afterward from what we promised as if we never said them.

But we need to tell you that the marriage vows you promise each other, are very important to God. They aren’t something God takes lightly or later forgets. And neither should you or your spouse. The Bible says, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes, and your ‘no’ be no or you will be condemned” (James 5:12). It’s also noted, “It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later consider his vows” (Proverbs 20:25).

Up front, we want you to know this isn’t a Marriage Message intended to throw verbal stones at anyone. God knows we’re ALL sinners, and no one can “cast the first stone” without throwing some their own way (and Steve and I recognize that we’re included in that mob). Sadly, we’ve sure gone through times when we didn’t take our vows as seriously as we should have!

Instead, this message is hopefully a wake-up call for us all, as it concerns our marriages. As God’s children, we are God’s ambassadors representing the bride and Bridegroom to a world that needs to see this living picture lived out in healthy ways. And may we do so to the glory of God!

Author H. Dale Burke says something important about the marriage vows couples promise each other on their wedding day. He says that those who marry often look at them as a romantic, “legal” or “religious” formality “to be dispensed with before the party can begin” (and afterward they wake up to reality, rather than a lifelong party). He says,

“… Maybe they just consider [their vows] to be a part of cultural tradition, like singing the national anthem before a ball game or saying the pledge of allegiance at the start of a school day. But what SHOULD it mean — what DOES it mean to say such things to a person in the presence of God? What does God do during the wedding? Is He, like us, merely a spectator?”

No. God said, through the Bible, something that both men and women should pay attention to:

“You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because He no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, ‘Why?’ It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are His. And why one? Because He was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. ‘I hate divorce,’ says the Lord God of Israel, ‘and I hate a man’s covering himself [which actually means 'his wife'] with violence as well as with his garment,’ says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit and do not break faith” (Malachi 2:13-16).

God takes marriage and committing violence with words and deeds very seriously. It is a way of breaking faith. (Ephesians 4 and 5 and 1 Peter 3 speaks more on this and the way we should conduct ourselves in our marriages so that we live with each other in an “understanding way.”

In all honesty, Steve and I have to admit that we didn’t have much of a grasp on understanding what we were committing ourselves to on our wedding day. If God hadn’t woken us up (and we hadn’t followed His leading), our marriage would have probably ended up as a divorce statistic instead of a love story written by God (which we believe our marriage is now). God showed us that when we started treating each other disrespectfully, our relationship started to go down the same slippery slope that many others go down to their marital deaths (as ours almost did as well).

We had to make a complete reversal of the way we were treating each other and learn how to relate together in healthier ways. And it sure hasn’t been easy, and at times it still isn’t to this day! Even though we know better, we find that we can still fall into the same “disrespectful and unloving” trap other couples do as they try to live out their wedding vows.

When that happens, we have to step back, regroup, connect again with God and with each other, and “fight the good fight” WITH GOD, instead of aiming at and fighting against each other. (If you find yourself in this same hurtful cycle, you’ll find a lot of helpful articles, tools, and recommended resources on the Marriage Missions web site to help you make your relationship a healthier one. Plus, at the end of this article we have a link to an additional article on this subject to help you further.)

H. Dale Burke, in his book, “Different by Design” (published by Moody Press) gives insight on this when he wrote,

“I’ll never forget the couple who showed up in my office weekly trying to patch up their marriage which, while in trouble, had incurred no damage that was beyond repair. … This was just two Christians who hadn’t learned to think ‘we’ instead of ‘me.’ They had never been taught to value and respect one another or nurture their love.

“Tragically, the biggest obstacle standing between them and reconciliation was Christian friends who kept fueling their frustrations and counseling them to give up. The very group of people who should have been cheering their efforts to save the marriage was sabotaging the rescue mission.

“At least one part of this couple’s problem was rooted in a misunderstanding of what marriage is all about. They, like most newlyweds today, saw marriage as a contract, which, according to my dictionary, is a ‘binding agreement.’ At the heart of every contract is a set of conditions or promises — the ‘deal.’ The deal is, you do this for me and I’ll do that for you.

“A contract lays out what ‘this’ and ‘that’ consists of. It also has an escape clause; either stated or implied, which says that if you fail to do ‘this,’ then I can stop doing ‘that.’ And in recent times, quite frankly, many people don’t feel that their contracts mean much of anything. All I need to justify breaking one is to say I’m not happy with the deal.

“Tragically, this flexible concept of contracts is how many people now view marriage. ‘If my marriage is an ordeal,’ they say, ”I’ll opt out and look for a better deal somewhere else.’ This is the unspoken amendment many people attach to their spoken vows of matrimony. Men and women differ in a lot of ways when it comes to what they bring to the marriage relationship, but this is a weakness they both share. Thousands of husbands and wives exercise this escape clause every year.

“A question worth asking, then, if words have meaning and we desire to be responsible with our wedding vows, is the same question abbreviated on so many bracelets and other items in recent years: What would Jesus do? Or better yet, what would Jesus declare about marriage, divorce, and the meaning behind those vows so often heard at weddings?”

You can read what Jesus said in Matthew 19 and you can understand more as you read through what the Bible says about relationships. Saying “I do” is the easy part, living it is a whole different matter. That’s the difficult part!

Through it all, please know that:

“Marriage can be wonderful. It can be deeply satisfying and mutually fulfilling. But IF it becomes that, it is because BOTH partners have paid a very high price over many years to make it that way. They will have died to selfishness a thousand times. They will have had countless difficult conversations. They will have endured sleepless nights and strained days. The will have prayed hundreds of prayers for wisdom and courage and understanding. They will have said, ‘I’m sorry’ too many times to remember. They will have been stretched to the breaking point often enough to have learned that, unless Christ is at the center of both their lives, the odds for achieving marital satisfaction are very, very low” (Bill and Lynne Hybels).

And to that we say, Amen! It’s a tough mission —one that is more difficult than we could ever anticipate before we say “I do.” But with mind-sets to persevere, with intentionality to do what it takes to make your marriage the best it can be, and with God’s help, all things are possible (and can have it’s times of being “wonderful”).

We pray as you look to the Lord, He will help your marriage to be one that reflects the heart of Christ,
Cindy and Steve Wright

-ALSO-

To help you further on this subject, please click onto the link provided below to read the Crosswalk.com article titled:

• 9 SUCCESS FACTORS AFTER SAYING “I DO”

And by “people” we’re specifically referring to Christians, because that’s who we’re addressing in this message. For those of you who are followers of Christ who are looking to marry someday or maybe you know a Christian who is considering marriage (that you could pass this information on to), please keep reading. It’s vitally important to marry the right person the FIRST time and not give into the current divorce trend that is happening in today’s world.

We are not to be marrying with just our hearts, but use God’s wisdom, discernment, and insight as well. It’s important to “keep your eyes wide open before marriage and half shut afterward” (Ben Franklin). If you didn’t do this yourself (and/or your spouse didn’t), maybe you can join us to prevent future tragedies in helping others to NOT make the same mistakes. It’s the “live, learn, and pass it on” principle.

It’s truly puzzling to us, why Christians aren’t being more cautious in who and when they marry — especially when it’s such a life-changing decision for them, and it’s extremely important to God’s Kingdom work. Marriage is portrayed throughout the Bible as a living, symbolic picture of Christ’s love for His church. How we interact with each other within our marriage is a vehicle God wants to use to demonstrate to the world, the sacrificial love of Christ.

God has a loving message He wants to speak through our married lives to help draw those who don’t know Him, to Himself. How sad that so many of us aren’t recognizing this and being more careful as we approach marriage so our living testimony is a positive one.

Even when building a tower the Lord warns about how important it is to “consider the costs” so that in the end, things will come out as they should and the builder won’t suffer regrets as well as be “ridiculed” by those who are watching (see Luke 14:28-30). And yet how much more important it is to “consider the costs” of building a marriage, which comes on the other side of the wedding ceremony! The vows we commit to are supposed to last a lifetime, it’s not just a limited time offer until the “love” and happiness dies. God didn’t design marriage to be a temporary union until something or someone better comes along.

For this reason, we caution those of you who are approaching marriage to BE VERY SURE to make your vows ONLY to someone who is committed to building a marriage relationship for a lifetime with you and with God, as “a cord of three strands” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). Love can be fun and grand when it’s all new and shiny, but eventually the shine wears off. At that point you’ll see how important it is to be married to someone who is committed to you and to God to build and rebuild, work and rework on your marriage relationship with unity as a goal.

In approaching marriage, be aware that many of us have “blind spots” that we don’t see or want to see concerning this sacred union and the person we think we should marry. Author Rob Eagar addresses this in his book “Dating with Pure Passion” (Harvest House Publishers). He wrote, “Some are too quick to think God has given them a revelation to marry through some inner feeling or ironic coincidence. They don’t do the hard work of carefully thinking the decision through.”

We’ve been contacted by many, many people who have gotten caught up in this phenomenon, only later to regret marrying without better preparing. God DOES sometimes reveal our future mate to us, but not very often. It’s important to slow things down, prepare just the same and make SURE you both rightly heard God and are willing to stay promise keepers in the future when things get tough — which they will. We all go through tough times in marriage. Just because God draws you together, it doesn’t mean that you are exempt from working through difficult issues that arise.

Rob Eagar also points out in his book that “similar problems (in overlooking blind spots) are caused by idealizing. We may hold to unreasonable ideals about romantic love or the perfect mate. Having ideals for marriage is crucial, but it is vital that these be realistic and in line with God’s best intentions for our life.”

Amen! Be aware that romantic love can sometimes be fantasy love, where you’re more in love with love and the person you THINK you’re marrying, than the one you are indeed marrying. For this reason, it’s best to prepare more for the marriage than the wedding. The wedding is only a one day fantasy event, which is nice and fun, but marriage is to be lived out for the rest of your lives together.

Don’t try to cheat by holding back on getting to better know each other and learn to work through important issues as you should in a healthy way. It will set the course for the direction of your marriage (if you find that it’s still wise to marry once you’ve done the work you should). We’ve got a lot of tools, articles and recommended resources on our web site to help you in this mission.

Keep in mind that once you’re married, your life will no longer be only yours to consider. You’re no longer ONE individual making decisions as to how you’re to proceed in every situation. From the moment you say “I do”, you change the dynamics of your life FROM THAT DAY FORWARD and your responsibility will be to consider your spouse in every choice you make (and for your spouse to do the same) so you “cleave together” in partnership as God intends. (Read 1 Corinthians 7 and Mark 10:2-9 for further explanation.)

Being cleaved together in marriage doesn’t mean that you’re so enmeshed in each other that one of you is erased. It means that the two of you, with very different personalities, strengths, weaknesses, expectations, and inclinations, may not always THINK ALIKE … but after you make your vows to each other, you are now committed to “THINK TOGETHER.”

Your goal will continually be to make daily choices, considering what’s best for the health of your relationship with each other and with God. Any decision you make that tears away from that sacred commitment comes with a very costly price to pay both emotionally and spiritually.

Marriage isn’t for those who want to hang onto their independence or those who aren’t willing to do the hard work it takes to grow in maturity and selflessness. You should only marry if you are prepared to be resourceful to FIND ways to weather even the toughest of times together.

You also need to look deep within yourself to work on your own issues to become the best you can be as a follower of Christ and a marriage partner — working together with God to love your spouse HIS way. Look to the Bible as your guidebook for that. The principles for loving your spouse are the principles for living that you find throughout the Bible.

“Marriage is a tool and a test to deepen your love and reverence, trust, and obedience for Jesus Christ. Marriage is not so much about you or your spouse — it is more about God” (Emerson Eggerichs). If you can’t love each other as God does, then marrying is not a good idea.

BE VERY SURE BEFORE YOU MARRY that you are BOTH able to live in marriage as God would have you.  “Be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

May God give you wisdom in your approach to marriage,
Cindy and Steve Wright

Is that your goal in marriage? It sure is ours! Since the day we committed our lives to Christ, it’s been our goal not to deny God anything. We continually strive to give our all to Him and our lives have been all the richer for it.

We continually pray that when others see us, they will see Christ IN us and will want to know our God better —that we won’t distort the message of the love of Christ through how we live our lives. We also pray we will always live faithful and fully committed to our God and to each other for the rest of our lives. May God help us in this mission, and may this is your mission as well!

This week we want to share with you a true testimony from the lives of two ordinary people who lived in extraordinary faithfulness to the marriage commitment they made to each other over half a decade before. The full article is titled “57 Years in 5 Simple Steps” and was featured in Marriage Partnership Magazine several years ago.

In this article, Phil Callaway had asked his parents to give him “5 good reasons” why they were still together. What his mom wrote was simple and yet has sure has inspired us in our marriage. We hope it will inspire you as well.

The following is a “brief summary” of Phil’s parents’ marital experience: “‘Five reasons We’re Still Together’ by Victor and Bernice Callaway.

1. “EXAMPLE: When we were married, we hardly knew about divorce. I guess everyone at our wedding, including us, fully expected the knot to stay tied. We watched their marriages. We had seen their faithfulness. We would stay faithful too. We realize you won’t have that advantage. Some of your closest friends may pack it in. But no matter how dark the road gets, you will find examples of faithfulness. AND WHEN YOU CAN’T FIND EXAMPLES, YOU CAN STILL BE ONE.

2. “COMMITMENT: Sometimes I felt like walking out on Dad. And a few times I did. Early in our marriage I occasionally took long walks to get away from him. But I always returned to his loving arms. We made a pledge before God that we would stay committed to each other for life.

3. “DEVOTIONS: Through reading God’s Word and praying together almost every night, we learned what God planned and expected for our marriage. We memorized verses that encouraged us to be loving, kind and honest and to keep on forgiving. We asked God for guidance and He provided it. We prayed for children and embraced each one as gifts from God.

4. “TOGETHERNESS: As a Christian family we stuck together, warts and all. Though we often failed, we’re learning to admit wrong and ask for forgiveness. We laughed lots. We cried lots. We talked lots. We worked together and we played together.

5. “GOALS: Since the day we said our vows, our goal has been to walk worthy of the Lord and to keep on walking until we see his face. Sometimes we’ve fallen flat on our faces. But when that happened, we’ve been given grace to get up and claim God’s promise: ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest’ (Exodus 33:14).

“Aging brings with it a whole new challenge. It’s no flat plateau; sometimes the hills seem steeper and the cliffs more precarious, but we’re learning to trust God for what’s ahead and to thank him for the abundant and undeserved mercies of the past.

“Not long after I read my mom’s note, someone informed me that another of my wedding day videos (that he tapes on various weekends) had become obsolete. I thought about my parents standing at the altar on a day when the temperature dipped to 45 below in Toronto. They knew that 10 days later Dad would go back to war, leaving his tearful bride waving from a train station platform. So they joined hands and promised to be faithful. They had no idea that their first child would die in their arms or that they would spend their entire lives below the poverty line. But they vowed to comfort each other, no matter what came their way.

“By today’s standards Mom and Dad didn’t have much… just $75, a solitary wedding ring and a suitcase full of dreams. More than half a century later, they still don’t have much. But their dreams were never about good fortune. Instead they dreamed of children who would follow God — and they got five of them. They dreamed of years of faithfulness — and they got more than 57 years of them. You can travel the world, but I’ll guarantee you one thing: you’ll never meet two wealthier people.”

It’s our prayer that we’ll be able to pass onto our children a love story such as this married couple did. What a precious inheritance! And it is our hope that you’ll also be able to live out a wonderful love story for all who are in your life to witness. As we’ve heard it said before, “It’s not how you start the race that’s as important as how you finish.” If you have issues to work through, lean into learning how to do this with the wisdom and strength God can give you.

We hope that if your love story falls short of that which the Lord longs for you to demonstrate, you’ll take to heart and live out what we’re told in the Bible,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (Hebrews 12:1-3).

Steve and Cindy Wright

“Since we’ve personally experienced communication problems and other struggles in our relationship, we can stand here, not any better than any of you—but maybe a little older and have been down the path a little further to pass along to you the same comfort and encouragement that God has given us— and God has given us a lot! (Yep! Steve and I can relate!)

“Our principle message is about differences. Sometimes people think differences are to be endured. We’d like to present that differences are to be appreciated. The world’s system doesn’t understand this because one of the grounds for divorce is incompatibility— which means ‘they were different from each other’.

But differences are actually God-designed. It’s ok to be different. Yet we don’t always live out those differences in ways that can benefit the other. We read a poem that reminded us of what goes on in our lives. It’s called: ‘He Said, She Said’ and it reads:

“Another marriage is shattered, Lord.
The divorce will be final next week.
He said it was the breakdown of communication
and a subtle infiltration of boredom;
She said it was an accumulation of things.
He said she was unnecessarily preoccupied
with home and children and activities.
She said he stifled her dreams
and ignored her achievements.

“He said he felt imprisoned and restricted—

that night after night he got the old push-away.
She said he was harsh and brutal
and he often embarrassed her in public.
He said her critical attitudes
contributed to his sense of inadequacy.
She said she felt lonely and unappreciated
with no claim to personal identity.

He said she wallowed in self-pity
and refused to acknowledge her benefits.
She said he was thriftless and irresponsible.
He said she didn’t understand;
she said he didn’t care.

Lord, how tragic!
Through all the wearisome years
neither of them asked…

what YOU said.

“What we want to do is tell you what the Lord says about relationships. It came to me that in Philippians, where we read about the minds of Christ in chapter 2, that unless we have the mind of Christ, we cannot carry out the things He tells us to do. Starting in verse 5 it says:

“‘Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’

“There are several things the Lord did in that passage. He’s our example, so there are four things we have to do. First He denied Himself. Then He became a servant. The next thing that He did was humble himself before God. If you’re going to do things God’s way you’re going to have to humble yourself. It’s not any fun to do that —especially when you know that you’re right. But then He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.

“When you humble yourselves and become obedient, you think you’re going to die. You come back to self-denial— and go right through that again as a servant. And the thing that will happen is, you will be exalted. The Lord says, ‘humble yourself before the Lord and He will exalt you.’

“That’s what’s happened to us as a married couple. Because one of us is willing to be obedient then the other is the benefactor. And when one of us is the benefactor, we’re both benefactors. And you get the good circle going instead of the bad circle.”

“The Bible talks in Genesis 2 about the ‘helper’ situation in marriage. It means to be a completer. It’s good that a woman and a man in marriage are different because you complete each other. Further in Genesis 2 it says, ‘This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife in such a way that the two become one person.’

“The word joined means glued. That’s why divorce is so destructive. When you put them together, it’s like two pieces of paper that you glue together. When you separate them there’s inevitably going to be scars of each on the other.

“It’s a devastating thing to see the scars from a previous relationship carried into the present one. If you’ve experienced this, draw a line in the sand saying, ‘The past is past. I’m going to look to the future and make the most of my present.’”

What Chuck and Barb shared contains so many truths. We can get so caught up in our own perspective of how we see ourselves being treated in a marriage that we forget God’s perspective in all of this. He’s usually more concerned about our character development than our comfort level. And what we’ve learned through He can use to help others and us, if we’re open to it.

If you were to stand before the Lord today to give an account for how you interact with your spouse concerning how you handle your differences and incompatibility, would He be able to say, “well done, good and faithful servant”? Are you living a “life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” as we’re told in the Bible in Ephesians 5? If not— today can be a new beginning. It’s never wrong to start doing what is right.

Steve and Cindy Wright

I got to thinking about all of this upon reading a related article, after we replaced one of our aging, high maintenance computers because of all of the problems, bugs, worms, Trojans, viruses and expense we had to deal with to accomplish everyday tasks for Marriage Missions. We purchased a lower maintenance Apple computer (a MAC) upon recommendations from our computer tech.

And then we came across an article titled “Hello, I’m a MAC. And I’m a PC” written by relationship expert, Scott Stanley (on his Sliding vs Deciding web site) and we can see how these computers parallel marriage.

In his article, Scott was talking about all of the problems he was having with his PC system and how it was causing him grief and how he was contemplating using a MAC for certain tasks —when he realized how marriages can be compared to these systems. He writes:

“How is marriage like the difference between MACs and PCs? Or rather how are differences in marriages like MACs and PCs? Most marriages, and I mean perfectly good, worth working on, solid marriages, are like PCs, not MACs. Just as there are many more PCs in the world than MACs, and there are many more PC marriages than MAC marriages. (BTW, if you think I’m talking about what type of computer you have at home, you haven’t shifted yet to the more abstract level. I’m not talking computer equipment now.)

“Here’s the deal. While the people I know with MACs are not always perfectly happy with their MACs, they’re mostly a seriously happy lot when it comes to computing. They turn on their computers (which look gorgeous, of course), they do what they meant to do in getting on their computers, they don’t think as much about the computer as they go about doing their tasks or following their interests, and then they move on. How simple. It starts up, you click on some things, you happily compute, and when you’re done, you do something else. And none of your time involves searching for an error message on Google.

“Now seriously, that’s not my experience with PCs. PCs are something else. PCs add a sense of deep mystery to life that is more in tune with the way life really is. PC people are living closer to reality in some cosmic sense.

“Some people have MAC marriages but most people have PC marriages. You know you have a MAC marriage if it just works most all the time and you don’t think about why it works or how to make it keep working. You know you have a PC marriage if you have to frequently reboot, install a patch, update something, scan for problems, or simply endure the fact that something isn’t working today that worked yesterday. PCs are exciting. MACs? Oh, they are so boring.

“I think some people end up in MAC marriages — which are much more rare than PC marriages — simply because of luck. Others do so because they are careful in the right ways about how they partnered up. For some couples, they simply had compatibility, attraction and a big helping of easy-going-ness. (Those with MAC marriages should not be arrogant; being thankful would be more the thing or else you may find your MAC starting to slow down.)

“Most marriages, and this includes very good marriages, are PCs. They take effort in order to keep doing the work of life. The truth is, in healthy marriages that have enough of the right stuff and that are not dangerous, the work is worth it. Sadly that message is regularly undermined in our culture. But it’s true, and much research supports the point. There’s no getting around the work. It’s just part of life in a PC marriage.

“And remember this, those of you in PC marriage: You have the opportunity of getting that deep sense of satisfaction that comes from overcoming things together. MAC marriage people can only dream of that joy.”

We believe Dr Stanley makes some great points for all of us to note. So, where do we go from here if we’re not in a MAC marriage, which is most of us (Steve and me included) and there is a lot of maintenance to be done to help our relationship grow in a healthy way? Do we throw away our marriage because it’s more work than we had thought or hoped for? Sadly, many people are doing that. Look at the divorce statistics.

But we don’t believe that God intends for His children to throw away their marriages (like outdated computers) and switch to another like we’re seeing over and over again in today’s world. But what can we do to combat this growing problem?

First, we need to help those who aren’t yet married to make better choices — GOD’S choices in whom they marry. Couples often “buy into the lie” that their love will just naturally grow more wonderful after they marry because their love is more unique and “different” than the other relationships they see around them. But that is the type of fairy tale attitude that is contributing to the high divorce rate.

The reality is that there is a lot more work and mature growth that is required than most couples realize before they marry. It takes more than a good connection in the beginning of their love for each other to make a marriage relationship a happy and healthy one.

Marriages aren’t meant to be disposable as computers —they’re meant to last a lifetime. And in order for that to happen, those who are looking to marry need to make sure they have what it takes to make that a reality.

We realize that there is a lot of denial and a lot of naivety that can be in the works before couples marry. But to the degree that it is possible, please help those you possibly can, to open their eyes to put in the necessary prep work to make sure they’re best suited to marry each other. Some people can have a lot of fun together in the short term, but they make lousy life-long marriage partners together —especially if either or both of them aren’t willing or able to grow in maturity together through the tough times they will encounter.

Marriage is for grown-ups — it’s for those who are willing to partner together in making their relationship the best it can be — one in which God’s love is lived out and can be plainly seen.

Those who aren’t willing to grow in maturity or leave their selfism behind, simply should not marry, no matter how strong their attraction is for each other. Also, being equally yoked is important —spiritually, emotionally, and morally.

We have a lot of articles and recommended resources available on our web site that can help couples learn about this and more of what they need in order to be best prepared for marriage.

It’s important to ask questions, be truthful with and find out more about each other, face Truth, pray, seek God’s wisdom, and find others who can help invest in your relationship so you can make sure you have what it takes to make this lifetime, sacred commitment.

If you’re married, ask God to help you to learn what you need to, so you can put the maintenance in that’s needed to at least do YOUR PART in being a good marriage partner. God will guide as you look to Him. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have to apply tough love principles or have to put down healthy boundaries or have to do some inner searching and facing of Truth at times, but God will help you as you seek Him — although it might not be in a way you expect.

And if you have a receptive spouse, find a time when it would be good to talk and can get on your knees together to ask God for help in teaching each of you what you need to learn so you can take your marriage to a higher level. Together, with God involved in your marriage as a “chord of three strands”, it is amazing how much your relationship can grow in ways you never imagined possible.

Don’t gripe about marriage being so difficult, or look at other marriages — wishing you had what they do. Instead, put your eyes on your own path, invest in your own marriage (rather than away from it), “reboot, install a patch, update something, scan for problems” and do what it takes to make the necessary adjustments and repairs to your relationship. And don’t give up so easily. Some of the most rewarding relationships come after a lot of very difficult, soul-searching work!

Realize that you may have a PC marriage and that is OK. Face up to that reality and grow in maturity and character as you work together with God. You may or may not ever have a MAC marriage, but it will be what you make it with the strength and the wisdom God can give you as you seek all you can become in Him.

“Let us not become weary of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9).

“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:11).

Cindy and Steve Wright

Maybe that’s the reason the Apostle Paul said, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things…” (Philippians 3:12-15).

It’s not that we aren’t to ever look back, but we aren’t supposed to live our lives staring into the rear view mirror, because it will hold us back from doing all that which we SHOULD do today.

So there are the “if only’s”, but also the “Why should I’s” that can cause problems. Steve and I hear them (and have even said them quite regularly. “WHY SHOULD I be decent and civil to my spouse when he/she isn’t?” Frankly, because the Bible tells us, “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ Jesus, God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).

It is written, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18). And how about what we’re told in 2 Timothy 2:23, “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels.”

We can get angry and say, “WHY SHOULD I speak nice to my spouse when all I get is insults?” God’s answer: “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9). “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were seated for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:29-30).

So you ask, “WHY SHOULD I?” Ultimately, it’s because He says, “I told you so, that’s why.” Just look throughout the Bible, you’ll see a whole lot more reasons than we can give you here.

We often hear wives say, “WHY SHOULD I treat Him with respect when He doesn’t act worthy of it?” The answer is, it’s NOT because HE’S worthy of respect that you do it — it’s because GOD has His reasons and HE says so. You can see that in Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3, where He makes it clear. It doesn’t say, “as long as he acts worthy of respect, then treat him with respect, otherwise, treat him as you like!” You’re doing this “as unto the Lord” — and for that reason alone.

And men, if you like throwing those portions of the Bible around to justify your own bad behavior, you’re wrong. You have even MORE responsibility in all of this to show love to your wife as you’re told in Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 and other places. God holds you responsible for loving your wife “just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” and presenting her to God “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish.” The question arises, “How can you do that when you’re bruising her heart by acting in an unloving, emotionally disconnected manner?”

The question a man might come up with (and some women as well), is, “WHY SHOULD I show her/him everything that’s on my computer or on my cell phone? Can’t I have any privacy?” Nope, you gave that up when you married. 1 Corinthians 7 makes it pretty clear that if you wanted “to be free” to do more of what you want to do without having to consider what a spouse would say, then you shouldn’t have married in the first place.

And then we can go back to the whole “If only’s”. However, it’s written in James 5:12, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no, or you will be condemned.” Don’t promise something you can’t or won’t live up to and will eventually try to escape. “It is a trap for a man to dedicate something rashly and only later consider his vows” (Proverbs 20:25).

We also hear from people who talk of God “not wanting” them to suffer as they are in their marriage, so they rationalize hopping from one marriage into another one, dragging their kids along. They talk of God’s love and grace and such. And that is true. God does extend grace. But as you read Romans 6, you’ll see this is not what God wants from us. We’re taking advantage of His amazing grace when we treat His precepts and laws and desires for us so lightly.

We see this all around us, even on the Marriage Missions web site where we have well over a thousand articles posted (and more being added regularly) to help our readers. Each article allows comments and encouragements from those that read and write. It’s an amazing platform where people from every nation are ministering to one another.

But it’s also a platform, like a hospital, where those who need help seek it there. Not everyone’s questions are answered or problems are solved, but we see God working in amazing ways through that which people write. And yet, it’s also evident that there is a lot of infidelity and rationalizing hurtful behavior that is being written about. So those of you, who can, pray about coming onto the web site and praying with and encouraging those who are hurting.

The reason I write this is because we’ve received comments from those who are not Christians who say that our “mission” is failing, and that it’s obvious that Christians are just as messed up as those without Christ, because of what they read on our web site. They don’t see God’s grace in action as much as they see the failure of Christians to live out what they say they believe. How sad! It’s sad that they don’t see the sick being ministered to, and the love of Christ being lived out.

It’s also a sad testimony that our lives and our marriages look as sick or sicker than those who don’t know Christ in a personal way! How this must break God’s heart! Yes, He extends grace, but it hurts His heart and His Kingdom work in other ways to do so. What amazing grace!

We hope what is written above will help you to consider the “If only’s” and the “Why SHOULD I’s” as something the enemy of our faith is feeding us to hurt us. Marriage is not all about us. “Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen your love and reverence, trust, and obedience for Jesus Christ” (Emerson Eggerichs). It’s a living testimony designed to point others TO the love of Christ.

We conclude by passing along to you something one of our subscribers, Alan Cook, wrote to us that we pray will give you food for thought this week. He wrote,

“I once gave a talk to a group of men about marriage being the most important missionary work we could ever do. For what does it help that we feed the poor, evangelize the world and yet we lose our most important calling and mission —our own sacred marriage?”

We encourage you to pray about it. 
Cindy and Steve Wright

YEP! We’ve been there and believed that one too! And what a slippery slope of fantasy we found we had embraced, after we woke up to reality and then tried to figure out what to do next, before our marriage died from the fall! We thank God that He led us to be “STUBBORNLY MARRIED” so we could survive and even learn how to thrive and build our marriage into a good one. But it hasn’t come easily (and still doesn’t at times) … a good marriage takes hard work!

Lets face it, whatever you don’t maintain usually falls apart! That’s true in marriage, just as it is in other areas of life. Try filling your car with gas one time and then keep driving it “from this day forward” without doing anything else to maintain it and see how far you go. Try fixing up your house and then let it go from there and see how great a place it is to live in over the next 50 years or so. How about letting your garden grow itself without putting in any work to maintain it? How well do you think it would do without putting in some work to help it to grow?

Try feeding and clothing your children in the beginning of their lives, say a year or two, and then let them fend for themselves after that while you sit around and watch TV and “do your own thing” whenever you’re home and see how well they do! Would they thrive? No. So why do any of us think it will work if we apply the same principle to marriage? If you ignore it, it will break down, crumble, starve and eventually collapse (and injure you and many others in the process).

Marriage is an explorative journey – one where a man and woman live in sacred partnership for a lifetime, helping each other become all God created them to be — both as individuals and as a couple — united in purpose by God, as a “cord of three strands”. When we don’t realize that mission or we ignore the hard work it takes to maintain and live this out, we fall short of having a marriage like the Bridegroom and Bride of Christ — united, as God would have us!

Marriage is a sacred union, a journey, and a mission that isn’t to be entered into by those who want to cling to selfism — individuals who don’t want to do the hard work it takes to unite in partnership in how they approach life “from this day forward.”

“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). In marriage, we are to agree together with God to walk united in His purpose. We won’t always think alike, but we are to work to think TOGETHER.

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend [or spouse] can help him up… Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (see: Ecclesiastes 4:9-12). If you haven’t yet, and you are fighting against each other in what should be a marriage partnership, today is the day to join hands for a NEW BEGINNING, united together with God.

“’Haven’t you read,’ [Jesus] replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate’” (Matthew 19:4-7). Please understand that you can separate each other in your attitudes as well as physically.

If this is what you are doing, ask God to show you HOW to join together — despite the problems you are now experiencing. The Bible says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” And so do a lot of marriages! Pray for a new vision. Pray for eyes that help you to see each other and your marriage as God sees each of you and your marriage. God can make all things new, and that includes resurrecting dead feelings, restoring sight to the emotionally blind, and healing the emotionally sick. God can create that which is “good” out of nothing. If He created the heavens and the earth, He certainly is capable of doing His creation work within each of you.

If you married someone you shouldn’t have or you have been disobedient as God’s child in how you have conducted yourself in your marriage, then look to God. His grace is amazing! He can “make your paths straight” if you “trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean no on your own understanding” and “in all your ways acknowledge Him” (see: Proverbs 3:5-6). He is there for all who seek Him — all who are eager to learn His ways.

“The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. The LORD upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them” (Psalm 145:13-19).

We encourage you to put in the hard work it takes to make your marriage the best it can be – one in which it is evident that God is at work. Become STUBBORNLY MARRIED — be tenacious in staying together, praying together (if your spouse will participate… if not, pray alone); ask God for wisdom in learning what you need to overcome the relationship obstacles before you in your marriage. Recognize that “Your marriage is a tool and a test to deepen your love and reverence, trust, and obedience for Jesus Christ. Marriage is not about you” (Emerson Eggerichs).

Marriage is a vehicle you take on your journey with God through your life this side of heaven. Please do what you can to maintain that vehicle so it is in the best condition that is possible.

And as you do that, not only will the journey be more fulfilling for you, you may find others who will want to know your God better as they are curious about “how you do it” — how you live your life in this way. You will be “communicating the gospel with and without words” in how you live your life as a living testimony within your marriage — pointing them to the empowerment one can experience through a personal and on-going relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

We hope you will — to make it your goal to “reveal the heart of Christ” within your marriage. In doing so, we are confident that more will seek Him and come to know Him in a personal way!

May God bless you in this mission!
Cindy and Steve Wright

We want to revisit the subject of prayer once again this week because it’s so important. We’ve personally seen the power of prayer transform our lives in so many positive ways as the Lord has brought unity into our relationship despite the walls we created through our hardened hearts.

We would like to share a point that Stormie Omartian makes in her wonderful book, “The Power of a Praying Wife“ (Harvest House Publishers). She addresses the question, “I don’t even like him —how can I pray for him?” Keep in mind that even though she is addressing wives, concerning husbands, the same can be said and prayed by the husband concerning his wife. She writes:

“Have you ever been so mad at your husband [or wife] that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him [or her]? So have I. It’s hard to pray for someone when you’re angry or he’s [she’s] hurt you. But that’s exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude?

“The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up front with the Lord about our feelings. We don’t have to ‘pretty it up’ for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we’re willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He then has a heart with which He can work.

“If you’re angry at your husband [or wife], tell God. Don’t let it become a cancer that grows with each passing day. Don’t say, ‘I’m going to live my life and let him [her] live his [or hers].’ There’s a price to pay when we act entirely independently of one another. “Neither is man independent of woman, nor woman independent of man, in the Lord’ (1 Corinthians 11:11).

“Instead say: ‘Lord nothing in me wants to pray for [my spouse]. I confess my anger, hurt, unforgiveness, disappointment, resentment, and hardness of heart toward him [her]. Forgive me and create in me a clean heart and right spirit before You. Give me a new, positive, joyful, loving, forgiving attitude toward [my spouse]. Where [my marital partner] has erred, reveal it to him [her] and convict his [her] heart about it. Lead through the paths of repentance and deliverance. Help me not to hold myself apart emotionally, mentally, or physically because of unforgiveness.

“’Where either of us needs to ask forgiveness of the other, help us to do so. If there is something I’m not seeing that’s adding to this problem, reveal it to me and help me to understand it. Remove any wedge of confusion that has created misunderstanding or miscommunication. Where there is behavior that needs to change in either of us, I pray You would enable that change to happen.

“‘As much as I want to hang on to my anger toward him [her] because I feel it’s justified, I want to do what You want. I release all those feelings to You. Give me a renewed sense of love for [my marriage partner] and words to heal this situation.’

“If you feel you’re able, try this little experiment and see what happens. Pray for your husband [or wife] every day for a month. Ask God to pour out His blessings on him [or her] and fill you both with His love. See if your heart doesn’t soften toward him [or her]. Notice if his [or her] attitude toward you doesn’t change as well. Observe whether your relationship isn’t running smoother.

“If you have trouble making that kind of prayer commitment, think of it from the Lord’s perspective. Seeing your [spouse] through God’s eyes —not just as your [spouse], but as God’s child, whom the Lord loves —can be a great revelation. If someone called and asked you to pray for his or her son, you would do it, wouldn’t you? Well, God is asking.”

I (Cindy) pray the Lord ministers to your heart through these thoughts. I know that nothing draws me closer to a right attitude about my husband than praying for him. As Stormie also said, “I’ve seen women with no feelings of love for their husbands find that as they prayed, over time, those feelings came. Sometimes they felt differently even after the first heartfelt prayer.”

I know this to be true in my own life because there was a time when I didn’t think I had any love for Steve. But as I began to pray that God would “renew a right spirit in me,” and I laid my dead feelings at the feet of Christ and earnestly prayed for Steve, God resurrected that which was dead and helped me to love Steve for who he really is instead of who I thought he needed to be.

As I (Steve) re-visit the subject of praying, I’m drawing again from the book, “The Power Of A Praying Husband“ by Stormie Omartian (Harvest House Publishers). As Cindy said, it’s sometimes difficult for our wives to pray for us because there are times they don’t even “like us.”

As I reflect on her statement I can’t help but think that those times usually happened when I was either apathetic or too controlling in our relationship —neither of which modeled Christ like behavior. I found Stormie’s book enlightening in a number of different ways regarding having the proper “prayer attitude” when praying for Cindy.

Let me cite an example. In “The Power Of A Praying Husband“ Stormie wrote, “Whatever you don’t pray about in your life you leave up to chance. And that’s not good enough when it comes to your marriage. The problem with chance in marriage is chances are there will be difficult times. Chances are there will be disagreements. Chances are there will be misunderstandings and hurts. Chances are there will be selfishness and hardness of heart. That’s because we are, after all, human. But if we leave the outcome of these things up to chance, we’ll wind up in trouble down the line.”

Stormie maintains that all of these things can be turned around through prayer. “If busyness, work-aholism, unforgiveness, strife, childrearing, careers, separate interests, boredom, miscommunication has crept between you and your wife, God can work through your prayers to bring down the wall that separates you, and mold you together in unity. Praying for your wife will not only soften her heart, it will soften yours as well.”

Doesn’t that give you hope? No matter what’s happened in your marriage, God can bring healing. You have Him on your side. And if God is on your side, you become a winner in the end!

We encourage you to pray for one another and love each other as God loves you. Please know our prayers are with you as together, we strive to make our marriages the best they can be because of the love of Christ,

Steve and Cindy Wright

What this says to us is that the family who prays together has a much greater chance of staying together. Because praying together has such a positive and effect on our marriages, we’d like to share with you a portion of the book, “When Couples Pray” by Cheri Fuller (Multnomah Publishers). We hope you find it to be as inspiring and practical as we have. Cheri writes:

“When Charlie Shedd, beloved Christian author, and his wife, Martha, were a newly married couple—just a couple of kids fresh from Iowa—one of the first lessons they learned was that there are some things you just can’t express in words. Charlie was studying to be a pastor, and he knew how important prayer and God’s Work were for the spiritual bonding he and his young wife desired.

“But in their first times of prayer together, Martha said that she was afraid that what she said to God would embarrass Charlie. Charlie understood why she might feel that way. As a seminary student, he was articulate, whether speaking to a group or telling God his thoughts. He sensed that Martha was more than a little intimidated by his verbal skills.

“So instead of praying aloud, they decided to take a different approach —they began to ask each other about their biggest concerns, listen as each shared, and then pray about them together silently. They’d hold hands, pray silently for the other person, and then pray the Lord’s Prayer together or read Psalm 23 aloud together.

“Real life gave this couple many opportunities to join together and pray —when they had a problem they couldn’t solve, when they were angry with each other, when they faced financial stresses, or when Charlie wanted to go one direction and Martha in another.

“Another thing that helped their prayer life and brought a closer spiritual bond was their weekly drive. Almost every week, Charlie and Martha would leave the kids with their grandparents or a sitter for an hour or two so they could take a drive together. They’d take along a Bible, and the spouse who wasn’t driving would read aloud from a passage they were studying. Then they would talk, share prayer concerns, and pray silently.

“They found other ways to share God’s Word together. Sometimes they chose one verse of the Bible as their verse for the day and ‘wrote it on their hearts’ in the morning. That night before going to bed, they told each other what their verse was and what it meant to them. In 48 years of marriage they read through the Bible 22 times, discussing their questions and insights along the way.

“As the Shedds grew in their marriage and in Christ, Martha’s self-consciousness gradually melted away, and they were able to pray aloud together. Like all of us, at times they had needs that they didn’t know how to verbalize —so they would go back to praying together silently. But whether praying aloud or silently they treasured their prayer times together and the ‘soul harmony’ that resulted.

“Couples around them were so struck by the happiness in the Shedds’ marriage that they asked if Charlie and Martha could help them deal with their problems and develop better marriages. And so began their marriage ministry, which eventually blessed thousands and thousands of families around the world.

“Here are some PRAYER EXERCISES for silent moments together:

• “Find a few quiet moments together when you can be alone. Sit knee-to-knee and express your most pressing concerns or needs to your spouse. Then hold hands and pray silently for each other’s burden. Conclude by reading a psalm together or praying the Lord’s Prayer aloud. Inspired by the example of Charlie and Martha Shedd, here are some other things you might try to develop spiritual intimacy:

• “Take a drive or, when you travel together, devote the first half hour to the passenger reading aloud from Proverbs, Psalms, or another favorite book of the Bible.

• “Keep a One-Year Bible in your car for when you’re traveling or running errands together. Have the passenger read a portion of the day’s Scripture.

• “In your individual Bible reading, choose one verse as your verse for the day; write it out on a three-by-five-inch card, and meditate on it throughout the day. Then, before going to bed, share with your spouse what your verse was and what it meant to you.

• “Try a weekly ‘word focus.’ Think of one of the greatest needs in your marriage —maybe it’s patience or joy or servanthood or another quality. Look up the word in the dictionary, and then go to a concordance and find Bible verses on the subject. Choose one of those verses to focus on in the following week, and share with your spouse any way the verse touches your life or how it is becoming a part of you.

“The following week, choose a different need in your marriage and a word to reflect it. Continue this for a month, sharing your discoveries with each other and thanking God for what He is revealing to you.”

We hope the above ideas help you to better unite together in prayer. We have additional articles on our web site in the “Prayer” section.

Our love and prayers are with you,
Steve and Cindy Wright

Wow! As I read your letter, what came to mind is “control issues.” I don’t know if your husband is a real controller (which may be), or if you are bucking any type of “control” you perceive he is trying to exert over your life (which may be), or if it’s a little or a lot of both (which it may be).

But from what I perceive as I pray and read your letter, is that if you are going to resolve this situation, somehow you and your husband need to call a truce and figure out how to quit treating each other like you’re enemies and more like you’re marriage PARTNERS — which you vowed to be on your wedding day. It will take intentionality on both of your parts to do this.

It’s real easy in marriage, when we live together day in and day out, to get to a place where we start nit-picking at this and that, and position ourselves at opposite sides of every little issue, pointing fingers at the other – that THEY are the problem. (My husband and I have been there and have done that as well, and can easily get caught up in doing that again at any point if we aren’t careful, so please know that what you are going through is not uncommon).

The Bible says in James 4:1, “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?” Somehow, you both need to take the time to pray together and look within your OWN hearts and ask God to show you how you can work together to work through issues, not against each other to compound them and to break down any self-willfulness that is setting itself up against resolving your differences.

You might want to pray as the psalmist: “Search me O God and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). “Who can discern my errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me” (Psalm 19:12-13). “Create in me a clean heart O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

Experts in relationships are saying that those who have the strongest marriages are ones where there is “mutual support and willingness to sacrifice.” I want to add to that… grace — to give each other more grace. All of this sounds like it comes from the Bible, rather than secular “experts”, doesn’t it? And it does (even though the “experts” wouldn’t acknowledge it.) There needs to be more supporting and working together, rather than against each other, because THAT’S sure not getting you anywhere good.

And you both need to seek God’s wisdom on this. We’re told in James 3:17, “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.” Is that the posture you and your husband are taking in these matters? Please look at each point and ask yourself if that’s your approach.

The Bible also tells husbands and wives in 1 Peter 3:8-9, “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

And that is what I… and especially GOD wants for you and your husband, and your children as well— a blessing. I’m sure your children are picking up on the tension that is going on between you. You are modeling marriage for them. Are you modeling the picture you would like them to see and live out in their own marriages someday (if they ever marry)?

“A good marriage doesn’t just happen! It takes a solid set of decisions, a huge amount of skill, and enormous willpower. I contend that people in extremely healthy marriages built those marriages just as you build a mammoth bridge or a skyscraper. They made their marriage triumphant because they simply wouldn’t settle for less. It doesn’t matter at all to them how much backbreaking work it requires; if it were necessary, they would do a thousand times more. Their willpower gives them this kind of toughness” (Dr Neil Clark Warren).

I hope you and your husband will exert the willpower and toughness it takes to turn this current rough spot around in your marriage. I encourage you to talk to your husband about this (but NOT at a time when you’re arguing). And don’t do it at a “H.A.L.T. Time” either. That’s a time when either of you is Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. There’s more vulnerability to be less tolerant during those times.

As author Scott Stanley says about approaching during a vulnerable time,

“A number of studies demonstrate that we tend to give people more benefit of the doubt [and grace] when we’re in a good mood and less benefit of the doubt when in a bad mood [or one of the above factors is in play]. If you’re in a bad mood, you’re more likely to perceive whatever your partner says or does more negatively, no matter how positive he or she is trying to be.”

So, the point is, to ask God to help you to discern when would be the best time to talk with your husband. You may still get a negative reaction from him, but there’s less of a chance of it if you pick a better time to make your approach.

Please know that we have a lot of tools on our web site in the “Communication Tools” section that can help you and your husband if you need to obtain some skill-building tools to help you resolve issues in a more peaceable manner, and articles on a variety of other topics as well if you need them.

I hope this helps in some way. No, I wasn’t able to give you a quick-fix solution, but rather I hope this inspires you to look at your “problems” more as character-building — marriage-building situations that once you have applied yourselves to work together, your relationship will be all the stronger as a husband and wife and as a family. I pray so.

And we pray so for each of you that read this Marriage Message — that along with God, you will victoriously persevere through every relationship barrier that comes your way within your marriage. God wants to work in and through you to display His grace and persevering love in ways that you never imagined. With God, you can do this.

Cindy and Steve Wright

“Do you believe your destiny is predetermined? Maybe you believe it is put in place by God (See: Jeremiah 29:11). I personally believe God has a perfect plan for us in all aspects of our life, but we have the power to mess up the plan as He allows our free will to be at work. I recently found a writing (author unknown) which I believe makes our part in defining our destiny clear.

Watch your thoughts, 
They define your words.
Watch your words,
They define your actions.
Watch your actions,
They define your habits,
Watch your habits,
They define your character.
Watch your character,
It defines your destiny.

“Now, let’s apply this to our relationships.

“First, THOUGHTS… Do you think positively about your mate or date? Or do you find yourself thinking about their faults more than their strengths?  Do you think about your relationship with commitment or as one that is on the brink of shattering with every upset?  Proverbs 23:7 KJV says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’ That makes it pretty clear that the destiny of our relationships begins with our thoughts.

“Now, what about the WORDS we speak?  Remember, they are defined by our thoughts. We have a choice of what we say and how we say it.  Proverbs 15:1-2 NIV says, ‘A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.’ It is clear that our words have a dramatic impact on the actions of our mate or date. Managing our tongue to speak truth with a soft tone produces the best result. Seldom are we forced to use angry words to accomplish our purpose.

“What about your ACTIONS?  So often we’d like to blame them on someone else such as our date or mate or even ‘the devil made me do it.’  Just like with our words and thoughts, our actions are made through our choice. Unfortunately, we may not stop to make a choice, but we react based on our emotions.

“It will be much easier to make a choice about our actions if we are managing our thoughts and words.  Psalm 1:1-2 gives us some insight as to how to do this. ‘Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.’

“Well, we’re getting closer to our destiny. Now we need to consider our HABITS. They are defined by our actions and are a matter of conditioning. I believe I’ve heard that repeating an action twenty-one times causes it to become a habit. Some of us may be more resistant to change so it may take 30, or 40, or 50 times. The key is that we are making a choice to change our habits.  Why? The reason is because it defines our character.

“What is CHARACTER? Well, it’s who you are. I’ve heard that it is what you do when no one is watching.  It’s who we are when all of the masks are removed and our vulnerabilities, as well as our strengths are seen by our mate or date. Hopefully, it is the greatest factor on which they make a decision about whether you are worthy of a relationship with them.  And let’s face it; it is defined by our thoughts, words, actions and our habits.

“Well, here we are at our DESTINY in relationships. What we want is to be happy, to be loving, to be committed, to be caring, to be empathetic, and to be emotionally healthy. The list goes on and on as we consider who we want to be to our self and others. We are forced to make choices which lead to a destiny in our relationships and the quality of our life.

“So, we reach the end; our destiny. It’s based on our choices and we are responsible for it. We can’t blame anyone else. But, now, we must go back to the beginning and start out again as life is constantly changing and we are presented with new choices. What a challenge it is!  But now we know how we got to where we are and how to get to a better place in our future.”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

It is our prayer that you will consider the message that Don Bailey gave us and choose this day and for the rest of your lives to live by the values and guidelines God has given us throughout the Bible. And that you will live out the words Joshua proclaimed to those around him:

“Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness… Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (from Joshua 24:14-15).

May God bless your marriage abundantly,
Cindy and Steve Wright

The Bible warns us: “Do not be misled, ‘bad company corrupts good character.’ Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God — I say this to your shame” (1 Corinthians 15:33-34).

But then there is the friend who acts like Jesus with skin on, who loves us in the manner of Christ — who lives out the proverb “A friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17). But lets take that a step further. What would you do about friends who see you doing something that’s hurting your marriage and they confront you on it? Would you embrace their motives and advice or would you push them away?

And what if you see your friend doing something harmful to their marriage, are YOU the type of friend that would keep quiet or would you confront them about it?

The Bible tells us that the “wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:6). The footnote explanation for this verse in the New Life Application Bible says something worth thinking about on this matter. It reads:

“Who would prefer a friend’s wounds to an enemy’s kisses? It would be anyone who considers the source. A friend who has your best interests at heart may have to give you unpleasant advice at times, but you know it is for your own good. An enemy, by contrast, may whisper sweet words and happily send you on your way to ruin. We tend to hear what we want to hear, even if an enemy is the only one who will say it. A friend’s advice, no matter how painful, is much better.”

We live in a time where the world teaches us to mind our own business — especially when it concerns a matter that can be awkward, and yet, is that really the way God has called us to live? Minding our own business might save us discomfort — but is that what Jesus did? Did He go about His life minding His own business — hesitant to confront those who were living their lives contrary to how God would have them live?

As we read the Bible, we see that Jesus was quite confrontational with those who claimed to love God and yet lived their lives in contrary ways. And He told others to follow His example. We are challenging you to do the same, as the Lord has challenged us concerning our friendships as well. We also have an article posted in the “Assorted Marriage Problems” section which goes into depth further on this matter. It’s titled “Friendships and How They Influence a Marriage” and you might find it helpful.

Concerning this matter, we urge you not to stay silent when you see married friends who are not living out their marriage vows — honoring the Lord and their spouse with how they interact with them. We encourage you that if you witness this happening to your friends, to ask the Lord to show you how to lovingly confront them before any further damage is done to their marriage and the Lord’s testimony.

“See to it that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” (Hebrews 3:12-13).

One of the definitions in the dictionary for the word “friend” is, “A person on the same side in a struggle — a supporter.” And that’s what we strive to be in the lives of those God brings across our paths; and that’s what we pray you will be for those around you. As born-again Believers in Christ, we’re on the same side in the struggle against that which is wrong. We’re not to be “nit-picky” about every little fault our friends have, but we also aren’t to stay silent about that which is blatantly wrong and harmful. We’re to poke holes in darkness even when it brings discomfort.

We need to speak up to confront those who profess to be Christians — those who are dishonoring each other in their marriages. The Christian marriage is to be a visible, living example of the love of Christ in action with how we interact with each other. And if each one of us takes this mission seriously, those who don’t know Christ will be able to see the love of God all the more clearly. As Bible teacher and historian Ray Vander Laan said,

“Our job is to live so publicly — so front and center, that as people see us, they see God. God puts us in the world so that as they see us they say, ‘Your God must be something else! I want to know Him as you do’.”

With this in mind, we’d like to share something written by Henry and Richard Blackaby. We pray that the Lord will speak to your hearts as He has ours on this subject of being a true friend to those around us. They write:

“We live in a world that teaches us to mind our own business. We try not to get involved in other people’s problems. We tell ourselves it’s not our place. This attitude is completely opposite to what the Bible teaches. As Christians, we’re called to become involved in the lives of others, especially when we see someone headed for trouble. It’s actually our responsibility, when we see a fellow believer drifting toward sin, to warn that person of the dangers ahead.

“Sometimes we’re reluctant to say anything to others because we don’t want to offend them. We don’t want to act ‘holier than thou.’ Besides, if we point out the sins of others, they might point back at us and begin naming our sins!

“So often we say nothing and think that’s the most Christian thing to do. James argues, however, that when we help someone avoid the danger of sin, we’re saving that person from death! We need to check to see what’s happening in the lives of people around us. If our friends keep falling into sin and we keep minding our own business, we have failed as a Christian friend.

“Is there someone you need lovingly to warn of the danger ahead? Take courage. Regardless of the response you receive, speak up before it’s too late. Do so out of genuine concern for the well-being of your friend.”

The Bible says, “Whoever turns a sinner from his error will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (James 5:20). The footnote explanation for this verse in the New Life Application Bible says this:

“Right living is the evidence and result of faith. The church must serve with compassion, speak lovingly and truthfully, live in obedience to God’s commands, and love one another. The body of believers ought to be an example of heaven on earth, drawing people to Christ through love for God and each other. If we truly believe God’s Word, we will live it day by day. God’s Word is not merely something we read or think about, but something we do. Belief, faith, and trust must have hands and feet — OURS!”

It’s our prayer that together we’ll make a positive difference in encouraging our friends and that we’ll “speak the truth in love” (as the Bible talks of) when it is needed. And as we do that, “we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work” (Ephesians 4:15-16). AMEN!

Steve and Cindy Wright