My Marriage is getting stale, what do I do?
CONVERSATIONS
Many couples enter marriage with no expectation that the emotional high that they feel during the wedding can (and will) eventually grow cold and run dry. When this happens, disillusionment can set in. Indeed, making a marriage work is next to impossible.
What should we do then? Just as Jesus can turn ordinary water into the best wine (Jn. 2:1-12), He can give new life to a stale marriage.
1. First, ask Jesus to fill up your love tank.
When two people enter marriage, they soon find out that it is a union of two sinful, selfish individuals with a limited capacity to love and a deep, gnawing desire to get love instead of give love. This tug-of-war keeps the couple from loving each other purely and generously.
The only way to be freed from the desire to get is to have our own love tanks filled by the One who loves us the most, and that is God. God loved us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to lay down His life for us. God's Word, the Bible, will show you how wide, how long, how high, and how deep (Gods) love is (Eph. 3:18 NLT). When we drink deep from His boundless love daily, then we won't need to demand our spouse to fill up our love tank. Instead, we are freed up to love our spouse.
If you have yet to discover the extent of God's love for you, begin the habit of reading the Bible daily. Start with the Gospel of John.
ACTION POINT: Spend time with God in prayer and in the Word, asking God to fill you with His love. What are you learning about His love for you?
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2. Second, ask God to teach you how to love.
Our capacity to love being tampered by our natural selfish bent, we need to ask God to teach us how to love as He does.
ACTION POINT: Read and study Ephesians 5:21-33. What are some things God teaches here about marriage, and about you as a husband or wife? What step can you take this week towards becoming the kind of spouse God describes in this passage?
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3. Finally, trust God for the results.
As you seek God to fill you and enable you to love your spouse with His love, pray for and with your spouse as well. Ask God to protect the covenant the two of you made with God and each other and breathe new life into your marriage. Then trust Him to respond to prayer that is according to His will (1 Jn. 5:14). May times of refreshing come to your marriage as you entrust your union to Him!
ACTION POINT: Do what you can today to show your love to your spouse at every opportunity you get. Refrain from expecting or demanding love in return. At the end of the day, write down how your spouse felt, and how you felt. Then pray for your marriage.
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Lets pray.
Father, thank You for creating marriage. It is in this union that we learn how to love truly, purely and deeply, the way that You do. Only help us to choose to learn from You, drink of Your love and trust You so that we could truly love the spouse You gifted and entrusted us with. Then may our marriage be filled with life and the beauty of Your love as You intended it to be.
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