“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.“ (Philippians 1:19) And that is our hope for you. We hope you’ll continually explore new ways to increase your love connection with each other in your marriage. And may it be done in “knowledge and depth of insight.” Otherwise, you’re in danger of drifting apart in your relationship. And one of those ways is by watching movies together.
Here’s something that’s good to know:
“It’s possible to be married to someone for 35 years and still not know them. This is because you never take the time to explore the deepest recesses of their heart.” (Dr David Jeremiah)
Being married and living in the same house doesn’t equal knowing each other deeply. You’d think it would. But life has a way of shoving us apart unless we make the intentional effort to stay connected.
Before marriage, you spent quality time with your spouse, which helped you to fall in love with them in the first place. So why not keep doing what it takes to CONTINUE in your love with each other? If you don’t do what it takes to connect with each other in meaningful ways, your relationship is in danger of becoming stagnant.
Staying Connected by Watching Movies Together
Recently, we’ve given you a variety of suggestions in the Marriage Messages for how to stay connected in marriage. We’ve given you the top ten reasons for Romantically Dating Your Spouse, The 22 Minute Date idea, the Holding Hand and Kissing Spouse Ideas, as well as other ideas. And you can find even more in the Romantic Ideas topic of this web site. Plus, we have articles posted on the web site for those of you who are geographically distanced from your spouse.
But now we’d like to give you another idea to help you connect. It is watching movies together and discussing different aspects of the movies. Make it a fun and informative time as well. You can get to know more about each other through this avenue of connecting. We’ve found a number of tools that could help you in this.
One idea is the movie Fireproof
Plus, we have Fireproof Discussion Pages posted on our web site to use as an additional way to help you connect. Even if you never see the movie (which we hope you will), the Discussion Pages can still help you in your marriage.
Other Ideas
There is also a “Movie Discussion Guide” (from Smartmarriages.com) for the movie “The Story of Us” starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer. It provides excellent discussion questions to give couples deeper insights into their relationship.
We must warn you though, that although the movie is very pro-marriage, it has quite a bit of profanity in it. We found it difficult to get past the profanity. But we’re glad we did because the message of the movie together with the helpfulness of the discussion guide can truly help couples work through issues. Again, you will benefit the most if you see the movie. But the Discussion Guide itself makes some great points. You can view (and download it) by going to the Smart Marriages web site.
And for those of you in the U.S. and Canada and other parts of the world that can view American movies, you could find the following web sites helpful. They guide you so you know more about the contents of the movies you could watch. That way you will know if you want to view them on your date nights:
Movie Guide Helps:
- Pluggedinonline.com — Their mission as a Focus on the Family publication is to equip adults, parents, youth leaders, and ministers with essential tools that will enable them to understand, navigate and impact the culture in which they live.
- Movieguide.org — This is a ministry dedicated to redeeming the values of the mass media according to biblical principles. They influence the entertainment industry executives and help families make wise media choices.
- Crosswalk.com/movies — while this web site is not primarily dedicated to movie reviews, they are a great resource on many levels. (But this part of their web site deals with movies.) They are a religious corporation dedicated to bring glory to God by building up the Church.
Plus:
- Christiananswers.net/spotlight/home.html — The primary goal of this web site is to provide accurate, biblical answers on a wide variety of questions asked by Christians and non-Christians. This part of their web site deals with movies and DVD’s.
Bible as Guide
But whatever you do, be careful of what you view. The greatest guide you can get is what the Bible tells us. “I will set before my eyes no vile thing.“ (Psalm 101:3) 1 Corinthians 6 tells us to “Flee from sexual immorality.“
Plus, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.“ (Matthew 5:27-28) In other words, stay true to each other. Abstain from viewing that, which brings another person visually or physically into your relationship. Connect with your spouse and not with anyone else!
Cindy and Steve Wright
Filed under: Marriage Messages