Life is not simple. We face many bumps and turns along the way. The race is real, the battle continuous, and the painful experiences may pierce our hearts. However, our circumstances should not define who we are or how we react. Rather, as believers our behavior in every situation should honor the Lord Jesus, and our identity should always be based on the salvation He has provided for us.
…as one whose wasted a lot of time, energy, and money on the wrong ways to get confidence, I can tell you from personal experience. It’s surely not from achieving the goal, getting the salary, buying the car, or wearing yourself out to win approval and acceptance from others. Been there, done that. It’s exhausting. I’m still working on it.
If I’m to live free, to be confident with healthy self-esteem, and to sincerely love and serve others well, I must be able to forgive myself for my mistakes – even the really ugly ones. Cuz from my experience, I know for sure that when I don’t forgive myself, I feel really down, discouraged, depressed, insecure, unlovable, and worthless. It’s not possible to love others well when I feel like that, or even be a person others want to be around.
My wife and I could destroy one another if we wanted to. Yep, that’s exactly what I said. Even though I am a marriage coach, author of a marriage book, marriage speaker, and a pastor, we could easily focus on the past, nitpick our idiosyncrasies, and wake up each morning with a load of case files against the other. However, there are a few aspects about our marriage that keep us from doing so.
A lack of forgiveness toward one another would be hypocritical
Ephesians tells us to forgive one another “just as in Christ God forgave you”. If we desire forgiveness from God yet are unwilling to forgive one another, then we are hypocritical at best.
I probably have a great wife rather than a great marriage
To be honest, I am a high maintenance husband. I know many would think differently after reading my marriage book or hearing me speak on marriage, but, if the truth be told, we probably have a great marriage more because she is a great wife rather than the other way around.
Of course, my wife stands her ground with a quiet strength, and we are never to abuse the fact that the other is a forgiving person. But, at the end of the day, I am certain that we have a better marriage more because our love covers our sins rather than fills the other’s cup.
I know some would like to think that we have a great marriage because we meet a certain ideal or standard in the other’s eyes, but we are frail at best. That is, my wife and I are sometimes short with one another, we both say things we shouldn’t, and we sometimes overlook the other person’s needs. However, we have found that good lovers are great lovers, and to look for something other than that would mean that we are already in Heaven.
We live our problems out
We believe in communication, and, for some couples, conversation is all-important. But, in our case, actions speak way louder than words. In fact, early in marriage, the more we tried to clarify our points, the worse our conversation went. For us, the greater need was to build up a bank account of credibility through our actions which always paved the way for smoother communication. We deal with this in chapter 4 of our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another.
We have a realistic view of marriage
I have never heard music playing in the background when my wife walks into a room. Problems are rarely solved in 90 minutes or less. Many a time, our heads spin not out of elation for one another, but out of frustration. But, at the end of the day, we are together, hand in hand, and closer because of our problems rather than in spite of them.
My wife and I are not just lovers, we are fighters in a common Holy War. Sometimes, we win. On many occasions, we feel a sense of loss. Some call this drudgery. We call it reality. God calls it marriage.
Order our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another.
Entire article written by: Dr. Raymond Force currently serves as a pastor of the Crossroads Bible Church in Ocala, FL which is a Biblically based church in the Central Florida area. Having served in a number of churches throughout his ministry, Dr. Force pulls from his experience as a pastor and a youth pastor to help others to overcome difficulties in their lives and relationships. You can order his marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another from his website at https://hittinghomeordermaterials.com/storefront
You may think that you are just an impatient spouse. However, it could be that impatience is only a secondary issue. Your real problem may lie in other areas.
A Futile Approach
Many feel that the answer for their marriage problems is to just work harder at showing more patience. I actually find this to be a rather futile approach.
It is like someone that is trying to lose weight simply working at staying away from food. It hardly ever works. The real need is to change their outlook on food and themselves. Once this occurs, they will have an easier time losing weight. I should know. I took off about 30 pounds last year.
In the same manner, the problem with many is not a lack of patience as much as a lack of understanding as to what works in a relationship. That is, many have a faulty belief system about marriage that leads to a dead end path of anger, fighting, and hurt feelings. The real problem is not so much the anger they feel at the end of this dead end path as much as it is the path they chose in the first place.
Most people are actually fairly patient with their belief system until they see that it fails. Once they see it fail over and over again, they succumb to their last resort: anger, frustration, or apathy.
Below are a few faulty belief systems that often prevail in people’s minds and hearts in regards to marriage and relationships:
Believing that Knowledge Alone is Enough
I hear spouses say all the time, “I know what to do. I just need to do it.” Maybe what they should really be saying is, “I know what to do. I just lack the power to do it.”
In our marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another, I wrote:
Herein, by the way, lies the fundamental difference between psychology and true Christianity: psychology can sometimes tell you the right things to do, but only Christianity can give you the power to put those things into practice.
-Dr. Force
As a man or a woman, maybe you should give up on will-power as few seem to be able to master it. Maybe you should try the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit (Psalm 34:8).
Without the Holy Spirit, your marriage is a car without an engine, and you will find that you can only push it so far. At some point, you will either give up, give in, or start using some faulty type of fuel that will do more harm than good in the long run.
Your breath is already in God’s hands (Job 12:10), He gives you your every morsel of food (Acts 14:17), God is acquainted with every hair on your head (Matthew 10:30), and He made every ounce of you (Psalm 139:14). That being the case, you might as well give Him your heart and submit your behavior to His will. Without Him, your marriage will always be incomplete in some form or fashion.
Failing to Realize that Your Spouse is a Spirit Being
If you are going to affect your spouse for good, then you will have to affect their spirit above all else.
We are not body, soul, and then spirit. We are spirit, soul, and, last of all, body.
Check out I Thessalonians 5:23. When God lists the 3 parts of man, He states that we are spirit, soul, and then body. This is because your physical body is simply a house or a dwelling place (II Corinthians 5:1). The real you is your spirit and soul.
Proverbs 18:19 tells us that the entry point into a person’s being is their spirit. That is, once someone’s spirit is closed, the rest of their being is closed also. Consequently, if a husband or a wife has tried ever so hard to get their point across without opening their spouse’s spirit, then they will eventually become extremely frustrated. This is because we can never expect to reach someone’s mind without first opening their spirit.
We cover this in detail in chapter 4 of our marriage book. In fact, it is one of our main teachings that is saving marriages through our coaching services and resources.
Self-Centered Intentions
I find that Americans are increasingly struggling with adulthood. In fact, it seems that a good many of us really do not like being adults.
A major part of adulthood is serving others without expecting anything in return. It just comes with the territory.
I find that using people, acts of kindness, or even scriptural teachings as an end to our own means is utterly childlike. Furthermore, your spouse is probably the greatest psychologist you know, and if you wonder why they do not do backflips because you made them breakfast or showed them affection, it could be that they feel you are keeping score.
If your spouse views everything you do as a way to get to the bedroom or their wallet, they will resist even the kindest acts. To put it bluntly, you will be too stuck on yourself to see that your spirit of expectancy pushes them further away than your works pull them toward you.
Entire article written by: Dr. Raymond Force currently serves as a pastor of the Crossroads Bible Church in Ocala, FL which is a Biblically based church in the Central Florida area. Having served in a number of churches throughout his ministry, Dr. Force pulls from his experience as a pastor and a youth pastor to help others to overcome difficulties in their lives and relationships. You can order his marriage book, How to Fight for Your Marriage Without Fighting With One Another from his website at https://hittinghomeordermaterials.com/storefront
Team Quadzilla 