4 Years, 4 Lessons

A few weeks ago I ran into a friend who is engaged to a lovely lady.

"What should I know about marriage?" he asked.

As the Lord would have it, I had just been mulling over the lessons we've learned in these past 4 years of marriage.

So here are the top 4 that came to mind:


1) Don't look too hard at one another; keep your eyes fixed on the Faithful One.

It doesn't take too many days (hours?) of marriage to begin disappointing one another, sinning, misunderstanding, and generally finding that your life partner has a discouraging number of warts (not to speak of the unfathomable sin that you never knew lay dormant in your own soul!).

The "life verse" of our marriage, so to speak, has been 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24:

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

I don't know how many times we have looked at one another and nearly despaired of coming to a good place in whatever relationship schism we had encountered.  But this verse has been ballast in the boat.

God is working.
He will sanctify and preserve.
His faithfulness is what we're banking on.

(A related point: Conflict is not futile.  Submitted to God, it always serves to draw us closer together in the end.)


2) Wives: Tone of voice matters.

I think my besetting sin in marriage has been in tone of voice.

I may be right.  I generally feel a sense of regal self-righteousness and vindicated frustration.  I nail the issue dead-on.

But O how often have I delivered my message with harshness, peevishness, disrespect, and irritation.

I have the world's most amiable, adaptable, accommodating husband, so he's open to almost anything I have to say.  But when I slap him in the face with my tone of voice, the value of the message is lost, and whatever good thing I thought I had figured out along with it.

But when the Holy Spirit moderates and I am able to communicate with graciousness, respect, humility, good will, and kindness ... he hears, he feels helped, he feels strengthened.

So this has become my prayer for myself:

1 Thessalonians 5:11:

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

3) Husbands: Work to understand your wife.

Since this was a guy asking, I tried to think of the one piece of advice I'd give to a husband-to-be.

Under the husband's all-encompassing call to love (Eph. 5), I think the most practical, tangible expression of care is a concerted effort to bend yourself to understand your wife.

Reflect on.
Explore.
Think about.
Remember.
Listen to.

I realize it's risky to try to speak for all wives.

But for me, even the worst mistake or blunder or sin has the stinger removed if I can tell that Ben is really trying to think of me.

1 Peter 3:7:

You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow hear of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

 4) Pray and plan together.

One of the most wonderful things about the wedding planning process was an unfolding desire to pray about everything.  Every little detail.  (And, out of the kindness of God, the outcome was a wedding day beyond what we could have asked or imagined.)

Tasting that grace, we decided early on that we wanted to have regular blocks of time (once a month, generally) to pray and plan together.

It's a little trickier now, with a little munchkin, but those pray and plan times continue to be one of the absolute best things for our marriage and for our life.

Starting off, we just made a list of all the significant areas of life we could think of, and then talk through and pray through the list, hitting some more than others, depending on what the need of the moment is.

We talk about important things, which otherwise would probably be overlooked in the rush.

We pray about lots of things.  I cannot imagine how much grace has flowed to us through this.

We look at the big picture of our life and assess what "course corrections" are needed.

We hear one another's burdens, hopes, praises, concerns, and joys.

We remember how big and sovereign and kind and wise and generous God is.

Bottom line: We love one another more, and we love God more.

Psalm 37:5

Commit your way to the LORD; trust also in Him, and He will do it.

 More lessons have been learned, but there are a few of the big ones in these 4 sweet, hard, fruitful, blessed, challenging years.

(And to outshine my puny 4 lessons, here is a great message: 40 lessons from 40 years of marriage -Dennis Rainey.)