1 Corinthians 7:1-7 GOD’S WORD Translation
Advice about Marriage
7 Now, concerning the things that you wrote about: It’s good for men not to get married. 2 But in order to avoid sexual sins, each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband.
3 Husbands and wives should satisfy each other’s ⌞sexual⌟ needs. 4 A wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but his wife does.
5 Don’t withhold yourselves from each other unless you agree to do so for a set time to devote yourselves to prayer. Then you should get back together so that Satan doesn’t use your lack of self-control to tempt you. 6 What I have just said is not meant as a command but as a suggestion. 7 I would like everyone to be like me. However, each person has a special gift from God, and these gifts vary from person to person.
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Marriage is a shared hard covenant to keep -there were times early on in my own marriage that I was sadly tempted to love my wife less out of fear of loss.
As time passed and my wife and I grew together, Through prayer, education, and God’s grace I reached a point where I realized how foolish this was and I made a final decision that if I was going to love, I was going to give it my ALL!
It was not that I did not give everything of myself before, but because of past wounds I had held back a little, cautiously protecting the investment of myself.
I was not giving a sincere gift of self the way God intended and in the early days it admittedly wounded my marriage.
Reflecting on my attitudes, my previous “bachelorhood at all costs” mindset I now understand how severely limited immature and selfish my thinking was.
Our Marriage is a journey of two souls bonded by a sacrament, living fully and loving intentionally.
I want nothing more than my marital journey to embrace all that God intends so when that day comes that God calls one of us 2 home, I can say with conviction that I loved fully and gave unconditionally to my spouse, “till death do us part.”
My marriage relationship with God and to my wife is of the utmost importance.
I want every single aspect of my time with my God and with my wife be of the utmost meaning and significance – no one else matters more than my bride.
We have been married thirteen and a half years now and we are both well in our retirement years – finances, health issues, hiccups, hang-ups and hurry up’s all somehow weave together and intertwine into all those things we call our habits.
There is nothing wrong with engaging in our hobbies, and playing cards, and playing our favorite board games, watching Netflix and relaxing as a way to connect with our spouses, but we can’t let that be all we choose to do together.
Intentional, deep, and purposeful conversations about issues that matter with our soul mates help to keep our marriages strong and well connected with God.
I find having gentle, sometimes even the provocative questions that help start these conversations is helpful to provoke us past the conversation focused only on the details of the day, considering the bigger picture of our lives together.
One of my biggest fears is waking up five or ten years from now beside my wife and anxiously feeling like I do not know her as well as I always thought I did!
That is perhaps a bit of a dramatic fear, but it’s pretty easy to slip into a place of marriage complacency that does not take the absolutely necessary time to look past what we saw in the past, and now see barely on the surface with each other.
The easiest way the Devil can steal time from our marriages often does not look like dramatic breaks of trust or infidelity – it’s actually just letting life consume us to the point that we slowly are becoming strangers living in the same home.
The way to avoid the slow fade out of love is open engagement, intentionality!
Its a process of God, husband wife self examination, being present with God, each other regularly, having fun “being like Jesus” together whenever possible.
It looks like staying on the same page with God and each other regarding the big things and with the little things – it’s cheering each other on and being there to encourage each other when we are stuck in a rut – it’s work, but it’s so worth it.
Here are just a few questions to help us stay connected with our spouses:
1. How do we both feel about our marriage?
My wife and I are opposites.
I should have known this from the beginning because when they did those cute things, those “let’s have you each answer the same questions separately about each other and then compare your answers games”, we almost shared none of the same responses.
Nonetheless, it has taken me nearly 15 years since our engagement to really appreciate how very different we are!
Not surprisingly, over the years, I have gradually realized that we often have very different, divergent understandings views on how our marriage is fairing.
I often project my feelings onto my wife without really asking her what she thinks about me, creating some tense problematic silent bubble interactions.
Recently I’ve trying to make a point to ask her how she feels about us before jumping straight into my very exclusive “how I have been feeling about us.”
It’s also helpful for me to gauge if my feelings are confirmed by her.
If we are both feeling “righteously” disconnected at the exact same time, then it’s probably a very good indicator that there is an issue needs to be addressed.
2. What is God speaking to our hearts in this season?
My favorite thing about the spring mother’s day season is that our wedding anniversary is right on this holiday weekend.
These two yearly celebrations always cause us to pause and consider what God is doing in the spring time of another day and year of our married lives together for our hopes and dreams of that coming year and reflect on what he has done.
We both feel that we probably should have these prayers, conversations more than once yearly, but aiming for at least that annual check-in is a good start!
Find a time to mark as when you recall, reflect, and look ahead together.
What dreams have God placed on our hearts?
What goals do we feel God is calling us to accomplish both personally and as a married couple?
Is there any one thing or several things that needs to shift in our lives to better hear what God is speaking?
Who or what do we feel led to pour into with your time, money, and heart?
How can we both be praying over the dreams God has given us?
Discuss all of this and more!
Don’t be afraid to seek the Lord boldly.
God has good, abundantly gracious blessings and plans for our wedded life.
3. Are we finding God’s joy in our daily rhythms?
Adulting is HARD.
How many times a day do we think about, do we intentionally, sneakily, look around the room for another grown-up to show up and take over, to defer to?
Sometimes we just get plain worn out.
There are so many things to worry about, responsibilities to juggle, manage, parenting chores to do, laundry to keep up with, and work emails to send!
All that to say, we need to help each other remember life is not just about work.
Life is meant to be enjoyed.
That does not mean that every last thing we are called to do will be fun or even dramatic or significant but we need to be intentional about cultivating joy and gratitude, even in the stress or most mundane things of our everyday existence.
We need to help each other avoid burnout.
Talk together about what we can do differently if we are stuck in a cycle of frustration, stress, or depression.
Be each other’s advocate for joy!
We grow old quickly if we forget about laughter, adventure, and contentment.
4. Do our behaviors and routines align with God, our family’s spiritual mission?
As Grandparents, in our experience with home schooling, getting distracted and even angered by resistance to learning, perceived missed milestones are easy.
Our thoughts can spiral from our children or grandchildren struggling with their math and reading lessons to thinking they may never be able to relate, make it as an adult and their whole lives will amount to failure pretty quickly.
A close friend of ours advised we write down the end goal when we consider what roles we can play with any homeschooling and revisit this idea frequently.
Reminding ourselves of our roles can help clear our minds from distracting, irrelevant worries – it also helps us ensure we are investing in the patterns, skills, rhythms and activities that best push us towards our primary mission.
All of this is also true in our marriages.
It’s easy to get upset, distracted, or overly invested in patterns of behaviors that don’t align with the critical generational spiritual mission of our home.
Take time to define together what we feel we are called by God to as a couple.
This could be a long-term mission or a short-term dream but write down what kind of culture God is calling you to create in your home.
Then take time to check in and evaluate if our behaviors and routines align with what we both feel God has put upon both of our hearts.
Life is short, and we are too easily distracted!
It’s important to keep each other accountable to our unique spiritual missions.
5. What are our financial goals?
Money matters in marriage.
It’s one of the biggest reasons for frustration and stress in married life.
Regularly coming together and evaluating your financial goals, spending habits, debts, income is helpful to ensure we are unified in managing our home’s finances.
There is often a spender, a saver, a money planner, and one spouse who doesn’t care about money.
It’s good to have that balance of perspective, but budgeting requires unity.
Even if money doesn’t stress you out, it’s still important that you take time to engage our spouses in this conversation.
If we’re the bill payer, spender (me!), it’s important that the saver keep tabs on us so our regular spending does not become a financial problem in our home.
Marriage is a blessing, but it’s also where God does some of his character-refining work in our lives.
We have to be disciplined in how we approach each other.
Choosing to stay engaged, invested, and open to each other.
More than anything, God placed you together for a Heaven-ordained purpose.
Don’t forget His mission for our marriage as we muddle through the details of our days.
He is our strength and portion; He establishes our boundaries, He gives us what we need and what we will require to make our married love last for a lifetime.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Father, I said till Death do us part
I want to mean it with all of my heart
Help me to love you more than I love her
Then I know I can love her more
Than anyone else
And bring her in Your presence today
Make her what You want her to be
I pray to hear her heart
I pray she’ll love you more
I pray to cherish and serve her
And we’ll bring you glory today, I pray
Father, I said till Death do us part
I want to mean it with all of my heart
Help me to love you more than I love him
Then I know I can love him more
Than anyone else
And bring him in Your presence today
Make him what You want him to be
Bridge
Lord, help me love her
As you love the church, your bride
Help me submit to him
As I submit to you, my life
This is my prayer Amen
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 