With the summer coming to a close, so does the growing season EXCEPT as it concerns marriage. If you aren’t working on growing your marriage, you’re risking going backwards. As Gary Thomas says, “A good marriage isn’t something you find; it’s something you make, and you have to keep on making it.” And we dare say, “It’s something you make, and you have to keep GROWING it!”
That’s why growing your marriage to be healthy, and loving is a goal we take very seriously here at Marriage Missions. We do this by helping you to grow your marriage, so you reveal and reflect the love of Christ in the way you show each other love and grace.
To help you in this mission we send out weekly Christ-centered Marriage Insights. We also keep updating the Marriage Missions web site with an increasing number of godly articles, quotes, etc. to help grow marriages. There is also a Prayer Wall you can use for marriage prayer requests. Plus we daily post marriage tips on Facebook and X —hoping these will help marriages, as well.
For this Marriage Insight, we’re sharing some of the Facebook marriage tips we’ve posted in the past. We’d sure appreciate it if you’d post marriage tips here and in other articles when you feel inspired. This will help to encourage others in their marriages, as well.
May the Lord speak to you (as He has us) as you prayerfully consider and discuss the following tips one-by-one.
Growing Your Marriage:
• “What a marriage needs, is the superglue of Philippians 2:3: ‘Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than yourselves.‘ This requires sacrificial effort. The Bible describes this plan in Matthew 22:39. It is written: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There’s no closer neighbor than the one you wake up with each morning!” (Dennis Rainey)
• “A friend of mine recently celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary. ‘If there’s one thing I’ve learned about marriage, it’s to never get so comfortable you cease to cultivate it,’ she told me. At first her words amazed me. How much cultivating could a 50-year marriage need? But I’ve come to realize everything requires constant care to survive. Our house needs a fresh coat of paint, highways need resurfacing, and a marriage needs a fresh coat of LOVE.” (Mayo Mathers)
To that we say AMEN! We’ve been married over 52 years and throughout that time we’ve had to put a lot of fresh coats of LOVE, as well as forgiveness, and commitment along with a continual pouring of firmly determined grace. But we can say that it has been worth every effort we’ve made to grow our marriage!
As Patrick Mabilog says:
“If there’s one thing a marriage should constantly do it’s grow. A stagnant marriage is just like anything else that’s stagnant — it’s either in a deep coma and will remain that way until jumpstarted or it’s dead. When God meets us in marriage, it never dies or remains dead. When Jesus takes center stage in a marriage, we live in fullness constantly growing and maturing.”
It’s also important to note:
• “It’s a sad state of affairs when we take better care of our cars and houses than we do our marriages. We fill the tank, check the tires, and periodically tune up our cars. We wash windows, paint walls, and re-roof our houses, but what do we do to maintain our marriage? The truth is, more damage is done than repairs are made… Stop saying your marriage is important. Words can be cheap [if not lived out]. Prove it!” (Dr Steve Stephens)
Additionally, Prayerfully Note:
• “Everyone who marries will encounter a season when the weight of the relationship ends up on his or her shoulders. Spouses get sick, distracted, selfish or overworked, etc. Life happens, the weight shifts, and suddenly we find ourselves wondering, ‘is this how God meant it to be?’ The choices we make during this difficult time are critical to the health of our marriage [as well as our personal spiritual life].” (Susie Larson) PLEASE choose God’s way, not man’s.
• “It’s easy to forget that ‘love returns in waves… you have to wait it out.’ Love is like the tides of the ocean. Sometimes they come in and passion is high. You feel the love and the relationship is wonderful. Then there are times when the tide is out. The relationship is dry and lifeless. You wonder if the tide will ever return. But if you’re patient and stay at the beach, romance can return to feel love again.” (Dr Steve Stephens)
• “Marriages usually don’t collapse overnight. They become bankrupt gradually because they lack daily deposits of love, communication, and affirmation. Unfortunately, many couples have lost the spark they shared before they married. Instead, they have replaced it with a humdrum routine. Dating and romancing your spouse can change those patterns.” (Doug Fields)
• “Love convinces a couple that they are the greatest romance that has ever been, that no two people have ever loved as they do, and they will sacrifice absolutely anything in order to be together. And then marriage asks them to prove it” (Mike Mason). Through it all, God asks us to prove HIM in the way we treat each other. (See: John 13:34-35.)
Remember:
• “A vow is like staking our lives on something so powerful only death can put an end to it. My faith in Jesus Christ is like that. Some days I feel spiritual, and at other times doubts plague me. But I don’t turn away from God, despite how I feel today. Good marriages are built on the same principle. The partners are devoted to each other, but they also have a commitment to something [and especially Someone] higher than themselves.” (Cecil Murphy)
• “The greatest thing you can do for your kids is to love each other well. Maintaining a happy, healthy marriage relationship will bring needed peace and stability to their lives. Plus, it will provide a great example for them to follow later in life. Make loving your spouse a high priority.” (Glen & Christie Hoos)
• “Love doesn’t do its dirty laundry for all the world to see. I cringe whenever I hear a husband humiliating his wife in public or a wife making snide remarks about her husband. If they do that in public, what do they do in private? A friend once told me, ‘There are times when I’ve been sorry I opened my mouth. But there has never been a time I’ve been sorry, I kept silent.’” (Ray Pritchard)
Keep in Mind:
• “It’s okay to have nothing to say …unless you’re talking.” “He who guards his mouth, and his tongue keeps himself from calamity.” (Proverbs 21:23) “I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words, you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:37) “A wise man’s heart guides his mouth, and his lips promote instruction.” (Proverbs 16:23)
• “If you have played the fool and exalted yourself, or if you have planned evil, clap your hand over your mouth! For as churning the milk produces butter, and as twisting the nose produces blood, so stirring up anger produces strife.” (Proverbs 30:32-33) “A good time to keep your mouth shut is when you’re in deep water” (or before you say what you shouldn’t). “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” (Philippians 4:5)
• “You cannot separate the horizontal from the vertical. You cannot talk one way to God and another way to your family, friends, and others. We’re warned about the power of the tongue. James wrote, ‘with it we bless our Lord and Father. And with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.‘” (James 3:9-10) (Emerson Eggerichs)
Additionally Note:
• “Many marriages consist of two people who have become enemies. Consider this: It’s hard to hate someone you’re praying for. Your heart simply won’t allow it. It’s also hard to sling mud on a person who is praying for you. Does your marriage break out in all-out combat on a consistent basis? Try bombing your battles with prayer instead of anger. It brings amazingly effective peace talks to the conflict. But don’t just pray for your imperfect spouse before or after the battle. Pray with him or her during the battle. It’s hard to launch scud missiles when you’re on your knees praying for each other.” (Stephen Kendrick)
• “Just because you’re married, it doesn’t give you a license to be mean-spirited and disrespectful in the way in which you speak to your spouse. That is true, no matter how he or she speaks to you. As told in God’s word, ‘Put away perversity from your mouth. Keep corrupt talk far from your lips.‘ (Proverbs 4:24) Treat your spouse ‘as unto the Lord‘ and you will do well. ‘The tongue has the power of life and death.‘” (Proverbs 18:21)
• “People either live up to or down to your expectations. …What a difference it makes when a husband truly believes in his wife, when he sees her not for what she is but for what she could be. What a difference it makes when a wife says to her husband, when his dream is teetering on the brink of destruction, ‘Honey, I believe in you and no matter what happens, we’re going to make it through this thing together.’” (Dr Ray Pritchard)
Put This Into Practice:
• “Make loving your spouse a top priority, second only to your relationship with Christ. Questions for you and your spouse to discuss: Does the example of a loving, committed marriage have an impact on others? What will people say was the legacy of our marriage? What steps can we each take to redeem the days we have left together?” (Bob & Cheryl Moeller) “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)
• “God’s ability to love unlovely people is available to us. We can open our hearts to God’s love and in essence say to Him, ‘Lord, you know the person with whom I live. You know I have great difficulty in seeing anything positive about him (or her). But I know that you love my spouse. I want to be your channel for loving him (or her) too. Use my hands, my tongue, and my body to express your love.’” (Dr Gary Chapman)
• “And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14)
“May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other…” (1 Thessalonians 3:12)
And may you be blessed, as you move toward God in marriage!
Cindy and Steve Wright
— ADDITIONALLY —
To help you even further, we give a lot of personal stories, humor, and more practical tips in our book, 7 ESSENTIALS to Grow Your Marriage. We hope you will pick up a copy for yourself. (It’s available both electronically and in print form.) Plus, it can make a great gift for someone else. It gives you the opportunity to help them grow their marriage. And who doesn’t need that? Just click on the linked title or the picture below:
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