Serving Christ in your Marriage

"It doesn't take a good man, or even a saved man, for a woman to have a heavenly marriage, but it does take a woman willing to honor God by being the kind of wife God intended."
~ Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom

We must remember, in loving our husbands God is not asking anything of us that He has not already done himself for us. Even if we believe our husband is horrible we need to remember how many times we've been horrible to God, basically spit in His face and turned from Him. Even so He chose to faithfully love us anyway and serve us by giving His life for us, by continuing to pursue us with His unconditional love.

He will give us the strength and wisdom to love our husbands the same way He loves us, if we but ask.

"You serve Christ by serving your husband, whether your husband deserves it or not."
~ Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom

God calls us to love him first with all our heart, mind and soul. After that His next commandment is to love our neighbor as ourself.

Who is your neighbor? Anyone with whom we come in contact. Not just our friends and those who are easy to love - but everyone. Even our enemies. Especially our enemies! God tells us to pray for our enemies and He tells us our battle is not against flesh and blood.

If we can't love the person we share our home and lives with, who can we love? Some women unfortunately see their husbands as the enemy. I honestly have done so at times myself. But God wants us to see that He placed our husband's in our lives for a reason, and it was not to be our enemy. But if that is how we do see them, then the first step is to pray for our enemy and ask God to show us how to love our enemy. Ask Him to show us how to see our husband through His Eyes. Show us how to have His Heart for our husband. That is the beginning of a heavenly marriage in this imperfect world.

"Women who have difficulties in their marriages usually follow their feelings and just react. But you must stop trusting your hurt responses or the advice you receive from the world, for today's media communicates a worldview that is skewed at best."
~Created to be his Helpmeet, Chapter 5: The Gift of Wisdom

Until recently this was me, reacting to my husband and situations in my marriage based on my hurt responses. Some of them were legitimate, some were not. Regardless, reacting based on the hurt only harms my marriage. I'm slowly learning to serve Christ through my marriage and to react in love towards my husband in all situations. Everyone we know and are close to will hurt us at some time, especially someone you live with and are intimate with. The key is how we respond. I will admit I still have times when I revert back to my old hurt responses (happened this last weekend in fact) however, when that happens we need to ask for forgiveness, ask God for His wisdom and His heart to continue on and start afresh.

The Drum or the Gold?

So I'm reading another Ted Dekker book - this one is called When Heaven Weeps. It is part of his The Martyr's Song series. I must say I've yet to read a book of his that is not good. The same underlying theme of God's great love for us is woven into each story, but each story line is unique. Yet he is able to weave many of the stories together. Amazing!

This particular story takes place in the early 1960's and is about one of the character's in the original Martyr's Song book (which took place during the end of WWII). He has now become a famous author due to his writing a book which was published in 1959 called The Dance of the Dead which retells what happened to him in WWII. Throughout the story there are excerpts from his book included. Here are a couple that impacted me.

(Note: Karadzic was a man in the Martyr's Song story who basically personified evil)

"We all have some of Karadzic swimming under the surface. We have all spit on the face of our Creator. Thinking that we have not is self-righteous - which is itself a form of spitting."

Wow! That may sound a bit harsh, but it is so true. I read this last week about the same time I came across the verse in Ephesians 4 again about grieving the Holy Spirit. It just seemed to go together to me.

"If you were to put all of the world's pain in one fifty-gallon drum, it would look silly next to the mountains fo gold and silver found in each moment with God. Our problem is that we rarely see past the drum."

Wow again! I've had moments where I've felt the very presence of God. It is an amazing feeling. During every one of those times I was doing one of three things - praying, worshiping and/or reading God's Word. The times of prayer and worship however, were not always times where I was on my knees before Him. Sometimes it was just going about my normal day to day activities and I would see something that would make me stop at least mentally and praise God for something that caught my attention. I've also started to get into the habit of talking to God in prayer more throughout my day, bringing every little thing to Him. He is a friend who I can confide in throughout the day.

God does want us to spend quiet time with Him, listening for that small still voice. However, He does not want us to leave that spirit of prayer and worship at the door when we walk out into the world each day. Nuturing a thankful heart and making that a normal part of your day to day activities helps to keep that spirit of prayer and worship with us all day long. When we have this attitude our perspective changes. We begin to see things through God's eyes and with His heart. Then when something bad happens to us our reaction will be different. We will start reacting to situations based on His perspective, His Word and not based on our own human understanding. We begin to focus on the moutains of gold and silver instead of on the fifty gallon drum.

So, as you begin your day - ask yourself, which do you choose - the drum or the gold?