Tag: Christian marriage

Identifying the Problem

Leave a comment

Marriage is one of the single greatest journeys any of us will ever take. It is capable of taking us to places of emotional and relational and physical and spiritual fulfillment that are hard to reach by any other means. That doesn’t mean people not so called are stuck incomplete. God calls and cares for them in special ways that go beyond what marriage can offer. But for those called to it, it can be absolutely incredible. At the same time, marriage is hard. It is hard enough that most marriages don’t make it for the lifetime the man and woman promised to each other at the altar. Everyone needs a little help and encouragement along the way. For the next few weeks, we are going to be doing just that in a new teaching series called, The Journey of a Lifetime. In this first part, we are going to identify the primary problem besetting our relationships. Let’s talk about it!

Identifying the Problem

Most of the stories we heard growing up ended with “happily ever after.” And, if the story involved a prince or princess in any way, what was it that likely preceded that famous tag line? A wedding. The characters fell in love, they got married, and they lived—say it with me—“happily ever after.” But did they? I mean, what happened after the credits rolled and the happy couple started to discover that one of them snores and one of them hogs all the covers. One prefers to sleep right in the middle of the bed surrounded by 8,000 pillows, while the other wants just a sheet and a pillow that’s only a step above putting a piece of paper under your head. One showers in the morning and the other at night. One is a morning person, and the other doesn’t honestly function until after the second pot—not cup—of coffee has been consumed. One is content with a bit of chaos, while the other likes to have everything neatly in order. One is always right and the other is never wrong. In other words, they start to find out that marriage is hard. Sometimes it’s really hard. And somewhere along the way, they are tempted to just throw up their hands and walk away because something created by God for our good and His glory couldn’t possibly be intended to be this hard. 

Read the rest…

God Loved First

1 Comment

For the last four weeks, we have been having a conversation about marriage. More specifically, we have been having a conversation about how to get back to the basics in order to fix the foundation of our marriage so that we can build properly and in a way that will lead to long term happiness and success. Most of this has been rooted in addressing our own relationship with God. Today, as we wrap up this series, we are talking about what most people understand to be the foundation of marriage: love. If we are going to get marriage right, we have to get love right. Let’s talk about what that means and how to do it.

God Loved First

Did you have a good Valentine’s Day? Guys, did you treat her right? Did you at least put a little bit of effort into doing something special? Do you know why we have a Valentine’s Day? It’s so Hallmark and Russel’s Stover can make obscene amounts of money selling cards and chocolate. It’s all a capitalist, corporatist plot to conform us to the social box they want us to fit into so they can keep making money off of us. It’s a scam! Or maybe it’s just a cynical effort to depress us for not doing enough to love our partners or to make us feel bad for not having a Valentine in the first place. Ever wallow in one of those particular puddles of self-pity? They can be a tempting line of thought this time of year, but, no, that’s not why we have Valentine’s Day. We have Valentine’s Day because hundreds of years ago, there was a pastor in Rome named Valentinus. 

Read the rest…

Naked

Leave a comment

While playing hide-and-seek is a fun game for kids, in the context of our lives, we want to be found. This is especially true in marriage. We want our marriages to be loving and intimate. We want to know and be known by our spouses. Intimacy, though, is tough. In this second part of our teaching series, Back to the Basics, we are talking about some of the things that can interrupt intimacy in our relationships and what we can do to get it restored. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Naked

I love playing hide-and-seek. I think I always have. I don’t play it as much anymore as I used to—my kids have mostly grown out of it—but it’s still a lot of fun. I remember one time playing with the boys at my folks’ house years ago. They have a loft area overlooking the living room. There’s a linen closet up there that’s really big. I got in there behind the blankets that were on the bottom, and they couldn’t find me. I had to finally start texting clues as to my location to Lisa so she could give them some hints. It was an awesome hiding place. But, the best part of the experience was being found, and the laughter that echoed through the house in that moment. When playing hide-and-seek, it’s always fun to find a killer spot. But if you stay hidden forever, eventually it gets boring. The real excitement of hide-and-seek is in being found. Deep down, we all really want to be found. 

Read the rest…

Love Lived Out

Leave a comment

Last week we began taking a look at what I promised would be some of the most important, but also the most challenging words on marriage we can find in the Scriptures. Paul’s counsel on how to get marriage right for the Ephesian believers starts with the command for wives to submit to their husbands and doesn’t get any easier from there. Without context, it just sounds like an ugly mess we rightly want to avoid. So, we started out this look last week with context. We explored the larger purpose and theme of the entire letter and came to the conclusion that something entirely different from what the world sees in these words is what Paul actually meant. This week, we are exploring Paul’s counsel itself and seeing what kind of sense we can make from it in light of the proper context. Keep reading to see how we did.

Love Lived Out

Have you ever done one of those hidden image pictures where you have to essentially color-by-number in order to discover what the image is? If you just look at it without doing any work on it at all, it looks basically like a bunch of random shapes all jammed together. At least, that’s the case if they’re done right. Until you begin filling in blanks, you aren’t able to really understand what you are seeing. If they’re created really well, you have to get several blanks filled in before you begin to get a clue. But at some point a picture starts to emerge. Once you’ve gotten a sense of where you’re going, then, the energy and intensity to work on it begin to increase. As you have a clearer and clearer sense of the end toward which you are working, you can move in that direction with greater diligence and speed. 

This is all a little like what we are going to be doing today. 

Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: Hebrews 13:4

Leave a comment

“Marriage is to be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, because God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Next up in our closing lightning round: Marriage. Honestly, this sort of seems like it comes out of left field. There hasn’t been a word about marriage in the rest of the letter. That’s also the case for several of the other commands in this list, but it’s a bit easier to see how they fit within the theme of the rest of the letter. This one stands out. Let’s spend a few minutes this morning reflecting on why this is here and what it looks like to honor marriage.

Read the rest…