Marriage Insights: Improving Your Marriage Relationship

Marriage Insights: Improving Your Marriage Relationship

This is a simple Marriage Insight, where we’re sharing some thoughts from one of our favorite books, “Romance in Real Life” written by Ellyn Sanna. Unfortunately, this book is no longer being published. But we love the thoughts written in it concerning growing the marriage relationship. So, here are a few. Please prayerfully read & consider how you can apply them to your marriage:

“Make your marriage your number one priority after your relationship with God. It’s too easy to let our marriages fall into the background. We would never say our marriages weren’t important—& yet we act as though they are not.” …“Being married isn’t a decision you make once & then be done with it. The wedding ceremony doesn’t magically transform us into ‘married people.’ Instead, being married is a lifetime process we must commit ourselves to again & again.” (Ellyn Sanna)

I admit that I have been guilty of this. My husband and I both have. When we got married, we just slid into life. There were a lot of things to do to build our life together, and we got busy at it. Like many spouses, we became so focused on making life “work” for us that we ran past & over each other to accomplish them. We just let things slide that we really shouldn’t have—such as intentionally growing our marriage relationship. We thought it our love would keep growing & growing as it had in the past. But I was wrong. We both were. It slid backwards.

“The plain fact is that most of us do not take marriage seriously. We get so caught up in all of 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) … It’s important to remember, “Marriage has no automatic pilot. You can’t flick a switch and lean back and forget about it. You have to stay at the controls, making adjustments, making it fly. Every day you have to decide to love your mate. Every day.” (Kevin Leman) You have to make big and little choices to choose each other over other demands.

“A marriage can be improved in many ways but I cannot think of one that doesn’t have something to do with giving.” (Henry James Borys) “Giving” in marriage is manifested in many ways. You are to “honor one another above yourselves.” (Romans 12:10) It’s a matter of giving of yourself to your spouse, “as unto the Lord.” When sacrificial giving is involved, imagine that you’re doing this for the Lord. Essentially you are, much like giving a “cup of cool water” to someone that is thirsty. “Marriage is not just a spiritual communion and passionate embrace; marriage is also three meals a day, sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash.” (Dr Joyce Brothers)

It’s like what George Eliot said, “It is not true that love makes all things easy; it makes us choose what is difficult.” And that often involves doing things that we really don’t want to do, when it’s not convenient to do them. Isn’t that what Christ did for us?

God has a very high calling for our marriages. He uses it as a vehicle to grow us up to love and serve beyond our own comfort zone. “Marriage is an occasion to practice the gospel day in and day out. …If we want our marriages to grow and flourish, we will follow the pattern for love that Christ lived. We will look for opportunities to lay down our lives, to put our love into practice. In the context of our daily lives, this seldom means we literally give up our lives for the spouse we love. More likely it means we pick up their dry cleaning—or take out the trash for them when they’re running late.” (Ellyn Sanna) “A growing relationship means turning romantic love inside out—from love that takes to love that gives.” (Henry James Borys) 

Again, isn’t that what Christ did for us? And as we’re told in the Bible, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:6) So, if you want to improve your marriage relationship, do as Christ did and does. As Christ followers, that is our calling. To help with this we’ve added more tips posted in this Insight at: https://marriagemissions.com/improving-marriage-relationship/.

We strongly encourage you to post some tips you know of. They can help many others to improve all of our marriages. We hope you’ll join us in this mission. ~ Cindy and Steve Wright

Health Food Devotions - Honor Your Father and Mother

Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.—EPHESIANS 6:2–3

 *Honor Your Father and Mother*

After I was healed as a teenage boy, the thought never entered my mind that I might die prematurely. Now since then, I almost died a time or two because I got into disobedience. But I got back into that secret place of the Most High just as fast as I could. I taught my children that if they honored their father and mother, they would experience well days on earth and live a long time. When they were little, I read the Bible to them. And if I had to (I didn’t have to do it very much), I would give them a spanking, because, like any other child, they disobeyed me at times. I would say to them, “I’m not doing this because I want to. I’m doing it for your benefit. I want it to be well with you. I want you to live a long time on the earth. I don’t want you to be in the hospital. And I know you want to live a long time on the earth.” Neither one of our children ever had to go to the hospital. (Pat went there to have her babies, but that was it.) Very seldom was either one of our children even sick, in any way. When Ken was twelve years old, my mother-in-law called me and Oretha while we were on the road holding a meeting. He had the mumps. Ken said, “Daddy, I told Grandma to call and have you pray. There’s no use in me missing school. God will heal me.” So I prayed. And within forty-five minutes, the mumps disappeared, and he went back to school the next day. He never did miss a day of school. God’s Word works!


 *Confession* : I want to live long on the earth. I want to enjoy my time down here without sickness and disease. Therefore, I obey the Word of God. I stay in obedience and enjoy the blessings of God, such as health and healing.

Marriage Insight: Why God is This Happening?

Marriage Insight: Why God is This Happening?

Everywhere you turn you are hearing of different tragedies happening all around us. There are hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding, fires, wars, rumor of wars, shootings, suicides, marriages on the verge of breaking up, and the list goes on. We hear the cries… daily. It is so heartbreaking. People are crying out, “Why God? Why is This Happening? Why don’t You stop this?”

How we wish we had answers for the heart cry of those around us. Just last night Steve was called to the scene (he is a Fire Department Chaplain) where a young boy committed suicide. The mom kept crying out, Why… why… why? And there are no logical answers to give to her. Comfort and help her… yes. But no real answers. I opened up the monitoring system to post comments that came in over night on the Marriage Missions Prayer Wall. There is one prayer request dealing with a spouse filing for divorce after meeting someone else, and the other is from a wife walking in on her husband having an affair. Why is this happening to good people? 

This morning a news story tells of people who are crying out to God as an evil shooter killed and wounded a huge number of people at a concert. Then there are bombings, stabbings & people ramming cars into crowds of people. There are so many people that never even thought much about God who are now blaming Him for the tragedies that are happening. Some were close to God before the horror hit, and others weren’t. But most of them are wondering why God didn’t stop these things from happening, or at least protect them or their loved ones when it did.

Sometimes there are dark clouds that surround our understanding of what “in the world” is going on. We have no idea of what God could be thinking in allowing certain horrible things to occur—especially when they occur to “good” people. We’re told God has a plan; and that He cares and He loves us. But our finite minds just cannot grasp the complexity of what good could come out of so many painful circumstances. Perhaps we are nearing the “last days” or maybe not—only God knows that truth. But whether we are, or not, we still need to “make the most of them.”

Jesus said that in the last days "there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, & never will be." (Matthew 24:21) …“Nation will rise against nation & kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines & pestilences in various places, along with fearful sights and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you." (Luke 21:10-11) As recorded in Matthew 24:6 Jesus said that in the last days "you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet." For this reason, we should not panic. We just don't know if this is the end, or not. We're also told, "There will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self..." (2 Timothy 3:1-5) And don't we see this? Please read the rest of those scriptures. We see a lot of this happening in today’s world. We need to "be on the alert" because the enemy of our faith wants to cause us to fall. Jesus "said to his disciples, temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!" (Luke 17:1)

With all of this, fear can easily grip our hearts. But grabbing and then holding onto fear will only render us helpless. There are numerous scriptures that support this point. Fear ushers in hopelessness, which is then pushed onto those around us. But what good will that do? God tells us through His Word to, "Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish..." (Eph. 5:15-17) We highly encourage you to continue reading what we are told in scriptures from there.

In 1 Peter 3:15-22 we are told, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…" Please continue reading from there. We’ll include them & more in the Insight posted at www.marriagemissions.com. But whatever you do, don’t panic… pray, & make “the most of every opportunity possible, because the days are evil.” Work to combat that, which the enemy intends for evil. We hope you will join us in this mission. And "may the Lord direct your heart into God's love and Christ's perseverance." (2 Thessalonians 3:5)

 ~ Cindy and Steve Wright