Week in Review

Invest in Your Marriage and Reap the Benefits
Marriage & family, God’s Plan

1. The first step in investing in our marriage is to seek our happiness and joy from the right source.

2. The second step in investing in our marriage is seeking our roles through God.

3. The third step is having a forgiving heart.

4. The fourth step is making marriage a priority.

Often times marriages find themselves in times of trouble because of the lack of care that was invested in the marriage. It does not hit you quickly but if you are so busy with other things, the lack of investment in ones marriage can slowly creep up on you and you can find yourself going in different directions. When you final pay attention, it is sometimes past repair (not in God's eyes but in our own).

As mothers, we often focus on the children, house, work and a list of other task and chores. All of these things are important and need our attention. However, so does the investment into our marriage. Our husbands were here before the children, and all the other task. If we do not continue to invest in the marriage when the children are gone we will find ourselves married to a stranger if the marriage hasn't completely dissolved before then.

Men, before the pursuit of careers, business ventures, hobbies, and other things, there was your wife. If you allow other things to take first place in your life, how do you expect your wife to feel loved when she is always standing next in line behind something else?

This is why the word of God instructs us about some important roles. Husband are to love their wives. This love is shown by placing her before all the other pursuits in your life. This is why the word tells us to respect our husbands. How do we expect our husbands to feel loved if we never have a place for them and our complaints are always about what he is doing wrong and how he isn't meeting our needs?

That is why we have to go back to the first point, finding our happiness and joy in God. Once we find our joy in God then we can focus on being the best we can be in our marriage. I can be the best wife and pray to God when my husband isn't being the best husband and vice verse.
You must make it up in your mind that you will invest in your marriage. If you want your checking account to grow, you cannot not neglect it and expect it by some act of God to grow. You didn't put anything in! It is the same with marriage. You must invest time, effort, prayer, care, love and a listening and forgiving ear and heart. When you invest these things into your marriage, you will be able to see the result of your investment. I know the hardest time to believe this is when you are the only one investing in the marriage.

What if your spouse isn't investing, but you are? That is where your prayers come into play. You can go to God and ask him to correct what is wrong. You can go and ask him to because you are being faithful and God says he is faithful to the faithful. You can trust that God will help you through those difficult times in your marriage. Come back next week and let's continue to talk about investing in your marriage. How do you keep hope alive and continue to invest, when it seems one sided?

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