ONE in CHRIST

It’s wedding season. So it has me thinking about weddings, marriages and how to continue to strengthen our marriage. It causes me to wonder how I can encourage others in their marriages.

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, 

“This is now bone of my bones
        and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
        for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2:22-24

We have prayed several prayers of thanksgiving in church each Sunday for the past several weeks for wedding anniversaries. My husband and I are so blessed to have also celebrated our 20^th anniversary.

Becky and her husband were married in June too and recently celebrated their anniversary. This past weekend I had the opportunity to shadow a photographer friend at a wedding she shot.

Disclaimer: This blog post will be mainly addressing the ladies of our audience, but men – if you choose to continue reading, I’m sure you’ll pick up a nugget or two.

The marriage relationship is unequivocally the strongest and most intimate of human relationships, which is why the Bible compares it to Christ and the Church. This is certainly a relationship we cherish and one we desire to grow. Let’s take a look at how and why, but only briefly. Afterall, this is an ongoing discussion and work in progress.

All the way back to the beginning…

Can you imagine how lonely Adam must have felt as he traveled through the Garden trying to find a mate suitable for himself? With each animal, he must have been thinking, “No, not right. Nope, not this one either. God, which one do you have in mind? None of these look like me or seem compatible with me.” 

Until… 

God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep to create the helper suitable for him. Genesis 2:23 is really the first poem we have recorded in all of history. Literally, Adam was saying,

“This time! This one!”

God created another human, like Adam in so many ways, yet uniquely different in others. Both were created in God’s image to bring glory to his name. The design for marriage that God instituted in the Garden was to be a beautiful blessing for the future of society.  

But then…

We see how the first sin and separation from God also brought about the first division in the home within the marriage relationship. One sin led to another, one blaming statement to another. We see how this can happen all too quickly in our own marriages too, even in bonds that are strong and inseparable.

We thank God that he sent Christ who redeemed his bride, the Church, with his suffering and death. He has forgiven sins of husband and wife, failures in marriage relationships, the blaming and selfishness. We are holy in Christ and can see and treat one another that way.

So now…

One way that my husband and I show our love and appreciation for one another is to learn more about ourselves and each other. We have found we can be more understanding of one another’s quirks when we have talked about and strive to understand their personality, their past experiences, and their likes/dislikes. Of course we’ve been doing this since the day we became friends, through the dating months, then finally husband and wife. We have continued to learn and grow through the years.  

• 

Like no other…

By God’s grace, we wives have been given a high and holy calling that no other person can fill for your husband. When I think of being that person for my husband, it makes me feel special, set apart from all the other people he knows and with whom he interacts. It also makes me ask the question of myself,

“What am I doing today to help my husband?
What can I do to support him in ways that nobody else can?” 

God made men with the innate need to feel respected in the work that they do for their families and in their occupations. God created women with the innate need to feel loved and cherished in their relationships. 

As our husbands’ helpers in the home and supporters in the numerous roles they fill, we strive to do our best at the job that no one else can do. The words my husband hears from me will either encourage him like no other person can or tear him down like no other person can. 

My prayer…

I pray I put the strong love I have for my husband into action each day because I know it will build him up and continue to help him fulfill his duties as husband, father, pastor, son, friend and all the other vocations to which God has called him. With the help of God’s Spirit and because Christ’s love motivates me, I can fulfill this role each day and God will bless our marriage. He will do the same for you.  

The best way…

We have read books like The Five Love Languages and His Needs, Her Needs. We have taken the Strengths Finder test, gone to a workshop detailing out each strength and continue to work on understanding the depth of each other’s “Top Five.”

Marriage retreats have been so beneficial in helping us have the deeper conversations that don’t happen in the day to day routines. Date nights (or midday dates) are given priority and get scheduled at least twice per month, with at least one overnight getaway a year. Stay tuned – I’ll be blogging about our 20th anniversary trip in the near future!

Basically, we are intentional about creating time for each other and for the purpose of growing our marriage.

While all of these elements for the marriage are useful, they are nowhere near a replacement for getting in the Word together. Regular devotions and prayer together is where we grow the most important bond – the connection we each have with our Lord and Savior, our first Groom.  Without him all the other things in the two previous paragraphs don’t get us anywhere.

We can love our spouses best when we love God most. 

But it’s not always easy, is it? We allow life to get in the way and sometimes we forget to make God, His Word, each other and our marriage priorities. It’s those times that we start feeling “off” and distant from each other. It’s so important that we not let that distance grow. Come back to God and each other before letting too much time pass.

None of us is going to ever be the perfect spouse. We each need to be repentant of our own sins and failures and offer grace and forgiveness to our spouse each day. Yet, since God brought you together and you have entered the marriage covenant with your spouse, you are the perfect spouse for your husband. 

Love is…

I have a good reminder on my bathroom mirror and intently read it every day: “[Love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (1 Corinthians 13:7) The next time you read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 , replace “love” with your own name. It will hit you a little differently than ever before. May this be an encouragement to you also and may God give you and your spouse this kind of love.

We pray… 

Dear Lord, my perfect Helper, give me a selfless spirit as I serve and support my husband. Let me think of his needs and show my love and respect in ways that build him up. Thank you for my husband, O Lord. Be with my fellow sisters in Christ as they continue to be helpers suitable for their husbands. Strengthen marriages all around us, Lord. Help couples turn to you for their spiritual needs and guidance, for the foundation of family and society. Strengthen their faith in you and their bond with each other so that others may see Christ in them. Martin Luther is quoted, “Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.”  Let this be true in our own homes. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.