“If you want to have and maintain a beautiful and meaningful marriage, you’ll have to exert a lot of effort. Falling in love is so easy that you don’t even have to try. It just happens. Keeping that love alive and vibrant over the years is something else. You just don’t fall in love and forget it. There are too many people who believe that their love is enough to carry them through. Not so. The truth is that, like a delicate plant, love needs to be nurtured and paid close attention to. The smart couple knows this and takes steps to preserve their love” (Bob Garon).

Last week we shared 3 marriage myths as written by Michael McManus in his great newspaper article entitled: “Myths and True Meaning of Married Love.” This week we’d like to conclude with the edited last 5 myths McManus wrote about on this topic. As in last week’s message, we’ve added bullet points with comments, and discussion questions at the end of each one hoping you’ll spend quality “Intentional Time” with your spouse going over them together.

MYTH #4: LOVE IS A FEELING. In fact Scripture says love is a decision, not an emotion, but an act of the will. Read 1 Corinthians 13 which begins “Love is patient.” Are you naturally patient? I’m not. But with my wife, I really try to be patient because I love her.

• What about you? Are you living the principles of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7? Read those verses together slowly and use it as a check up list comparing your own actions with each other.
• To further help you with this, we’ve put together a “Marriage Check-up List” on the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 that we use in our own marital relationship. You can find it on our web site in the “Tool” section. We go through this list once a month—asking ourselves these questions and asking our partner for forgiveness wherever we’ve hurt them. We’ve pledged to love each other with the principles of the Bible as our guide. And this list helps us to do so.
• Keep in mind that “God’s love is to be directed outward toward others—not inward toward ourselves.” God’s love is a “noun”; but it’s also a “verb.”

MYTH #5: ONLY MINOR CHANGES ARE NEEDED TO ADJUST TO MARRIAGE AND THE OTHER PERSON. Actually, major reconstruction is needed. We are a fallen race, a sinful people. The ego must be crushed. How proud we are—how selfish and self-centered! Pride must be destroyed. Our whole inner life must be restructured to please the other person.

“In marriage the pressure is felt most in a whole series of tiny sharply defined issues of morality, (that) take the shape of commandments: Honor the day of your anniversary: remember to take out the garbage; don’t use the power saw when your wife’s home because she can’t stand the noise. Only another person can challenge and confront us at this deep personal level of our own private will and reveal to us how petty it is,” writes Mike Mason in a profound book, The Mystery of Marriage.

• Now that you’re married, has it been minor changes or major changes that you’ve found you’ve needed to make to adjust to life as a marital team rather than as one individual?
• What have some of those changes been?
• How have you grown as a person because of the challenges of living together as husband and wife?
• Is there anything you could have done before marrying that would have helped you to better prepare yourself for the adjustments that come with being married? What are some of them that you can think of at this time?

MYTH #6: IT TAKES WORK TO MAKE A GOOD MARRIAGE. It does take commitment and a good attitude, but the need goes deeper. The more fundamental need is TIME, T-I-M-E, not work—lavish, extravagant, huge amount of time. How much time did you spend with each other in courtship?

Be together without interference, resentment, opening up in life’s lonely areas, vast areas where the other person can find a home, a friendly space, an unhurried peace, and a serenity within the heart of the beloved.

• What do you think about the statement about “time” that Mike McManus makes? Is that possible with all of the demands you find combating you each day?
• Look at your schedules and with “intentionality” carve out some “time” to be together. Keep in mind that “you got married because you dated. It only stands to reason that a good way to stay married is to keep dating.”
• Read the following statement: “Healthy marriages require intentionality. many couples have fallen into a passive approach to their marriage and wake up one day wondering what went wrong. They operate their marriages in what we call default mode: things happen without planning or directions or effort. Instead of default mode, we need a proactive approach for our marriages to grow. The call that we’re sending out is this: Get out of the default mode in your marriage. Live at a higher level!”
• Discuss how you can “pro-actively” work to get out of the “default mode in your marriage.”

MYTH #7: THE GOAL OF MARRIAGE IS FULFILLMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL. Of course we seek fulfillment, and many see marriage as a path to finding it. But if marriage were the vehicle, how could single people find fulfillment? Instead, we must seek abandonment, giving up ourselves so fully that we almost surrender our individuality and forget who we are.

• Discuss what you think about this last statement? Does it go along with the example Christ gave us of His love (as described in Philippians 2:6-11)?

• Read and then discuss the following statement by Gary Inrig on this same point: “A thriving marriage expresses Christlike love: Christ becomes for us the pattern of love, and that pattern is sacrifice. ‘Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’ It means that, in biblical terms, love is defined, not by sweaty palms and beating heart of infatuated adolescents or the steamy passions of a Hollywood romance, but by the cross of Christ. Love produces sacrificial action. It’s seen not just in what Christ felt but in what He did. ‘He loved the church and gave Himself up for her’.” Do you agree or disagree with what he had to say about Christlike love in marriage to make it thrive?

MYTH #8: I CAN CHANGE MY MATE. Actually, you can only change yourself. But that can change the character of the marriage, inspiring the very change you longed for in your mate. As Mason puts it, “Marriage is the single most wholehearted step most of us will ever take to fulfill Jesus’ command to love one’s neighbor as oneself.”

• Are you fulfilling Jesus command to each other as oneself? If not, take the time to confess, pray with, and pray for each other that with “intentionality” you will begin anew to live out the true meaning of love in your marriage.

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We pray this message by Mike McManus has been an enlightening one for you. Mike is the Founder and President of Marriage Savers (www.marriagesavers.org) which is a wonderful organization that ministers to married couples throughout the world. We also pray that the statements and questions we’ve added have ministered to your relationship as you’ve spent the time discussing them with each other.Because of Christ,
Steve and Cindy Wright 

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