All couples have spats. The common denominator for couples that keep their marriage on track is learning how to disagree with the best of them. Stop using divorce as a weapon. Instead of giving up on the marriage when the going gets tough, consider it a challenge to learn as much as you can about your mate & how you can effectively deal with adversity. Make an intentional decision to love the one you’re with.
If you’ve been dealing with challenging issues in your marriage, it may seem like your relationship will never change. But don’t let your frustration get the best of you. While you and your spouse’s own efforts to change may fail, God will change your marriage if you pray. Prayer has the power to accomplish what nothing else can…
– MMISome work hard, it’s because they are afraid of losing; some work hard, it is because they realise they lack; some work hard, it’s because there is no choice of turning back.
According to this Scripture, one of the greatest hindrances in our walk with God can be success. The subtleties of achievement creep into the most innocent hearts and can take us on a path that is far from God. How can we keep this from happening? To look for pride is nearly impossible, but it is easy to humble yourself and place all of your sense of worth upon the One who loved you enough to die for you on the cross. When this becomes our source of significance, neither wealth, achievement or intelligence can compete with knowing the Lord.
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This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD. – Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NIV)
How well do you take correction? It has been shown that a lack of clear boundaries breeds insecurity in children. Unfortunately, those insecurities stay with us in adulthood. Unless we are able to acknowledge others who are more talented or skilled than we are and learn from them, we hinder our ability to go forward. Learn to come under the discipline of correction and you will become a way of life to many around you.
– Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray. – Proverbs 10:17 (NIV)No matter what struggles you have as a couple, if you keep praying together, you can see things turn around. If you or your spouse feels uncomfortable or embarrassed praying out loud in front of the other, don’t be discouraged. Many people have felt that way and overcome it. Ask God to help you. Ask Him to teach you and your spouse how to pray together so you can have the marriage He wants you to have.
In Phil. 4:8 we’re told to keep our minds from focusing on the negative: ‘Keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly & proper. Don’t stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile & worthy of praise’ (CEV).
In finding help for your marriage, it’s not so much the ‘how to,’ as the ‘heart to’ do what is needed. If you know the ‘how to’ do what is needed, but you don’t have the ‘heart to’ do it, the ‘how to’ won’t matter. You won’t do it. …One of the ways to renew the ‘heart to’ improve your marriage is to rediscover the purpose of marriage.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 (NIV)
– Paul gives us perspective when we face unanswered prayer. There will probably be times when our requests are not in line with God’s purpose for our lives. Paul understood this. He was pleading for God to change his circumstances, but God wanted to use the circumstances to change Paul! It reminds us that unanswered prayer may not be unanswered after all; we just don’t like the answer. When that moment arrives, may we be like Paul, who took what seemed like a setback and turned it into praise.”Most of our expectations of marriage have come from entertainment, family, and friends so it end up with a copy of a tattered image.Why don’t get your expectations from the Word of God and you will reflect the design of marriage’s original maker” -Eye2eyemarriage. A 3-chord relationship is not easily broken. You + your spouse + God = the right way to live within your marriage!
– MMIWaiting for your mate to be perfect is like waiting for a train that will never arrive. It’s not going to happen. When you said ‘I do,’ you agreed in principle to bear with their weaknesses. Don’t let small matters become large. If something is important enough to bring to their attention, then choose carefully. Don’t make every issue something of importance. Doing so may say more about you than it does about them.
”Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you” -Ephesians 4:32. “We have the power to forgive because Christ forgave us, and He gives us strength through the Holy Spirit. As you let go of harbored hurts, you will be free to love your spouse, no matter how many mistakes he or she has made. And as a result your mate will love you even more.
Be committed to permanence: “God’s objective for marriage is a loving relationship of oneness. Jesus said, in Matthew 19:6: ‘They are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together let man not separate.’ Notice that this is a divine transaction: God has glued the two together so that they become one. This is why divorce is so devastating. It leaves not two persons, but two fractions of one.
