Are you doing that? Are you making your marriage your top priority because of your relationship with God — putting the heart of Christ in the center of your marital relationship? Your marriage is a top priority to God. Throughout the Bible God portrays marriage as a visible picture of Christ’s love for the church so marriage is a huge priority to Him. The question is, if God places marriage in such a high priority, shouldn’t we?

Please recognize that “being married isn’t a decision you can make once and then be done with it. The wedding ceremony doesn’t magically transform us into married people. Instead, being married is a lifetime process— one that we must commit ourselves to again and again” (Ellyn Sanna).

Also, “The marriage ceremony isn’t like a graduation ceremony; rather it’s similar to the first day of kindergarten! It’s not the culmination but the beginning” (Susan Alexander Yates).

As Dr Kevin Leman says, “Marriage has no automatic pilot. You can’t flick on a switch and lean back and forget about it. You have to stay at the controls, making adjustments, making it work. Every day you have to decide to love your mate.”

For some reason we seem to think that because we enter into marriage in love, our love will automatically continue to grow for each other after the wedding without putting any work into keeping it going strong. That type of reasoning is a lot like saying, “My car is filled up with plenty of fuel today, so it should be fine to keep using it from now on without doing anything else to it.”

As Dr Steve Stephens says about this way of thinking:

“It’s a sad state of affairs when we take better care of our cars and houses than we do our marriages. We change the oil, fill the tank, and periodically tune up our cars. We change light bulbs, wash windows, paint walls, unplug toilets, and re-roof our houses, but what do we do to maintain our marriage?

The truth is: more damage is done than repairs are made. How important is your marriage? Is it more important to you than your car or your home? Are you willing to put in the time and energy and whatever else it takes to prove to your partner how valuable the relationship truly is to you?”

Ask yourself this question: DO you put in the effort that shows your marriage is a top priority to you?

Steve and I (Cindy) have found that having a good, growing, God-honoring marriage takes a lot of work to maintain it. We found that it takes making CONTINUAL CHOICES in both small and large ways to choose each other’s best interest as a top priority in our lives. We also need to make sure that the choices we do make don’t threaten the health of our marital relationship.

If I make a choice that hurts Steve and tears against the relationship God wants us to have with each other, I know that I hurt the heart of God and please the enemy of our faith—which is the last thing I want to do and should do. (The same is true when Steve makes choices that hurt me.)

Marriage is designed by God to send a strong message to each other, and the world we’re living in, that because of our love and commitment to our spouse, we’re here for each other. Our partner in marriage should be able to count on this because their happiness and well-being is just as important to us (and according to the Bible should be even more so) than our own.

“But the plain fact is that most of us don’t take marriage seriously. We get so caught up in all the other demands that our marriage and the quality of our togetherness fall to the bottom of our ‘to do’ list.” (Evelyn and Paul Moschetta)

“In juggling our busy lives, it’s all too easy to let our marriages fall into the background. We never say our marriages aren’t important—yet we act as through they’re not. Almost any time management book will tell you that one of the first steps toward using your time more effectively is to write down your priorities—and then use your time in a way that reflects those priorities. That may mean we have to say no to other responsibilities and pleasures.” (Ellyn Sanna)

“Marriage is difficult! There is a lot of real life going on in marriage with ups and downs, dreams attained and dreams lost. Real-life marriage is hard. It’s a balancing act of jobs, children, friends, and in-laws, paying bills, cooking meals and maintaining a home. Not only these, but we also deal with transitions to different stages of marriage—adjusting as newlyweds, working dual careers, having kids, kids growing up, moving, changing jobs, and growing older.

Often the one we’re supposed to love most is lost in the confusion of life. You need to put activities into your life together to help you to enjoy and encourage each other as husband and wife as well as to foster talking, learning and growing together. (Kandi Arnold)

“We all live by priorities. These priorities are revealed most often by our actions. Answer these questions: ‘How do I spend my time? How do I invest my money? How do I use my energy?’ Then you’ll have the answer to the question, “What are my priorities?” (Gary Chapman)

We need to realize that Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action. The Bible says, “Let us not love with mere words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18) It takes both saying we love each other and proving it by how we live out what we say to truly show love to our spouse.

So, how do you change things to make sure that the intentions of your heart line up with your actions in showing that your marriage is a top priority to you? Here are a few suggestions:

• Pray. With a sincere heart, ask God to reveal to you how to do this.

• When you do wrong, confess to your spouse that you’re sorry but you want to change things. Hopefully your spouse will receive your confession in a kind and gracious manner. But even if they don’t, allow them to vent over this situation. By doing this you’re giving them the gift of compassion which they deserve to receive from you because of past behavior. They need to know you truly are sorry over this matter. (If, on the other hand, both of you have allowed everyday living to slide between you in your marriage then it’s time for both of you to pray to God for guidance and confess to each other your sorrow.)

• Ask your spouse what would help them feel valued in your marriage.

• Work on a plan with your spouse to change the things that you need to so past behavior on this matter doesn’t become your future.

• Then actually follow through with the wisdom you’ve been given. Make it a priority to do so. “Knowledge is the acquiring of facts, understanding is the interpreting of facts, but wisdom is the application of facts” (Dr Edwin Louis Cole)

If in the future, you find yourself sliding backwards in your commitment to make your marriage a top priority then re-work the plan. It’s difficult to stop the inertia of allowing this to happen. The very definition of “inertia” in the dictionary is “the tendency to keep moving in the same direction, unless affected by some outside force.”

So, apply the force it takes to change the inertia of allowing other pressures to interfere with making your marriage your #1 priority — both for the sake of your marital relationship and to let God know that His priorities are yours!

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

Cindy and Steve Wright

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