Would you forward this to all your married friends generally or to specific people privately through Messenger or some other app? Why? Because they may need this. And the problem is this: they may make it all look good on the outside, yet inside the marriage these issues are a raging fire.
Do you remember the Titanic? Unbeknownst to many, there was a fire raging in a three-story-high coal bunker on the forward end of the ship. Some experts claim that the fire weakened one of the main bulkheads of the ship. Although everything looked great on deck, there was a fire wreaking havoc on the integrity of the ship; such that, when the ship hit the iceberg, the ship’s integrity had already been compromised.
My concern is this. In many marriages, the integrity of the marriage is dangerously compromised; such that, with the addition of highly pressured circumstances of almost any sort, the marriage faces a terminal end.
Friends, as you read this, consider if you harbor anger, bitterness, jealousy, or lack of contentment. If you do, three things may be true. You more than likely minimize the damage to the integrity of your marriage. You probably do not realize the kind of life you are forfeiting. Plus, you minimize the kind of life you rob from your spouse.
The Damage to the Integrity of Your Marriage
For far too many of us, our marriages face incredibly tough challenges. These challenges bear down on the structural integrity of our marriages each day. At one point or another we made a commitment to each other – a covenant. Since that day, both of you faithfully strive to live consistent with that covenant because of your love for each other and, more importantly, your love for Christ. As God is covenant faithful, you do your best to be covenant faithful as well.
Enter anger, bitterness, jealously, and/or lack of contentment. When these personal pressures enter into the marriage, they not only zap the marriage of joy, communion, and intimacy, but also produce much damage. When these works of the flesh settle into the living space of your heart, they begin to poison everything else that comes from that heart.
In some ways it becomes like radon gas in an unsuspecting home owner’s house. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that can cause lung cancer. The problem is you can’t see or smell it. Someone must test for it and then treat it or it impacts indoor air quality.
In a similar way, anger, bitterness, jealously, and/or a lack of contentment can quietly and unsuspectingly take residence in one’s heart. As it does, it begins to produce significant harm which then leads to additional problems. The shelf life of anger before it turns putrid in your soul is very short. The downward spiral includes bitterness and malice.
Typically this change happens over time without the individual even noticing these attitudes. You realize one day that you do not enjoy your spouse, you do not enjoy your marriage, and you see little hope of those things changing.
These emotions and feelings stem from a saddened heart that hurts, from expectations that have not been met, and from potentially very real offense. Yet, in the process of responding to those real issues, you have allowed your heart to become significantly impacted by sin.
You Forfeit a Joy-filled Life
In the process of living under the burden of a sad, hurting, sinful heart, you actually forfeit a life that could be so much better and greater. No doubt your spouse plays some role. He or she may sin against you in various ways. Your spouse may be lazy, selfish, failing to consider your feelings and emotions, and not very motivated to change. These are some of the most typical ways that a spouse helps create an environment that encourages your heart to respond in unhelpful and sinful ways.
Let’s assume your spouse plays a role.
However, your responses make the misery and burden of the problem greater. Sin complicates life. Nursing your hurts often creates greater and deeper hurts. What is truly disappointing becomes discouraging and despairing.
Why and How?
Essentially your life gets harder because you allow your circumstances (albeit encouraged by a less-than-stellar spouse!) to rule you rather than your relationship with Christ in the midst of the circumstance to rule you. You react to the problem rather than act specifically in light of the problem (Eph 4:26-27, 29-32).
The result is that your situation gets worse and worse. Your reactions complicate the matter. In addition to having a simple problem, the issue becomes complex. You add layers of sin, guilt over that sin, and a severely weakened relationship with God to an already weakened relationship with your spouse.
What’s the alternative?
The problem is you increasingly look inward and become self-focused on all the ways God, your spouse, and your life are not good to you rather than looking to Christ for help and hope in the midst of the problem. The alternative to this kind of living comes from a vibrant relationship with God through Christ.
Of course there are numerous examples in the Bible of those who chose to walk and follow Christ rather than becoming overwhelmed in their own circumstantial troubles. In the Old Testament Joseph, Daniel, and Esther come to mind. In the New Testament of course we consider Jesus and Paul. Each of these individuals demonstrate to us the ability to have joy even in the midst of sadness, tough circumstances, personal disappointment, unmet expectations, and less-than-perfect situations.
You Minimize the Kind of Life You Rob from Your Spouse
As you continue to respond to your burdens in a non-Christlike way, you actually minimize the blessing you should be to your spouse. Let’s be honest. You may be thinking, “Why would I make my spouses’s life better if I am so miserable?” You wonder if you are just being used. Why should you respond in kind and helpful ways if your spouse is not doing his or her share?
If you think these things, you are not alone. You join many others in this same sentiment. You may wonder what would motivate you to be a Christ-filled, joy-filled, other-loving person when your spouse continues to under perform in marriage and life.
I get that.
However, because of Christ’s sacrificial, God-glorifying, others-centered love for us, we responsibly seek to provide that same love for others – especially our spouses. Although your spouse may provide you a difficult environment to love him or her and flourish as a person, Jesus provides the example and help you need to honor Him and love your spouse.
What happens as you choose to live for Christ?
You become part of the grace your spouse needs. Your commitment to Christ helps create an environment where your spouse can better flourish – all the while you pray, serve, and seek to help as you can. Your love makes the path smoother toward your spouse’s repentance and further godly responses.
You living for Christ makes your spouse’s turn toward Christlikeness easier and more likely. To sin in return, allow your heart to be misaligned with Christ’s, and harbor bitterness only encourages your spouse to also have a hardened heart. As God’s goodness helps us toward repentance, your goodness also provides an easier way forward for your spouse.
You have the ability to incredibly bless your spouse. Your spouse’s life could be so much better simply because he or she lives with a godly person. To not live for Jesus, makes your life harder and robs your spouse of what he or she might have as well.
You may be saying, “But Pastor Kevin, he/she does not deserve my kindness when he/she fails to make me happy.”
I sadly get that. In fact, as a spouse to my own wife, I’m sure there are many days when she could make the same complaint. In fact, there are few married couples who at one time or another couldn’t say the same thing.
You are right. He or she does not deserve your lovingkindness. However, we choose to love because of Christ not because of our spouse. We choose to respond as Christ did to us when we did not deserve it nor did we even look for it. Jesus loved us in spite of our sin and ugliness. He provides us the ability to love our spouses the same.
How You Can Respond
- Test your heart to see how you respond to a spouse that sins, disappoints, and fails to meet your expectations. Do you respond in kind? Do you respond in Christlikeness or with selfish ambition? Are you waiting for your spouse to earn your kindness before you are willing to show him or her more of it?
- Confront sin where necessary. Where and when your spouse sins against you, as a fellow believer in Christ, humbly bring it up in a Christ-honoring way. By sin, I mean specifically sin where you see or hear something sinful. As you do discuss these instances, recognize that God may use these moments to help your spouse – who is also your brother or sister in Christ – become more sensitive toward the Gospel.
- Choose to serve by love and walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:13-26). As those who are saved by God’s grace and have life in Christ, we make choices in each of our moments in marriage. We choose to either serve our spouses by love as we walk in the Spirit or we devour one another as we walk in the flesh. There is no middle ground. You choose one or the other.
- Pour your heart out to God as you seek to walk closely with Him depending upon His grace as you seek to serve your spouse well. God remains covenant faithful, gracious, and merciful in spite of our sins. We do not meet His expectations, do not creatively serve, and often disappoint Him. However, He mercifully and graciously moves toward us in kindness in spite of what we deserve. In the same way, we seek to do the same for our spouses. In the process, we pour out our hearts to a compassionate and understanding God, Who longs to hear from us and walk with us, and One who provides grace from the throne to us in our struggles (Heb 4:14-16).
Image Credit Micheile Henderson
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