Have you prayed for your spouse today? Psalm 1 provides a helpful guide as you pray for your husband or wife, or for someone else you know. A prayer for your husband: LORD, I pray that my husband will be blessed today–happy and spiritually healthy in You. I pray that he Read more…
“LORD, I lift this marriage to You. I ask You to put Your hedge of protection around this marriage and to thwart every enemy scheme against it. ‘Catch for us the little foxes’ that would eat away at this relationship–the little foxes of busyness and the little foxes of unresolved hurt Read more…
We tend to think that we love someone when that person attracts us. When we no longer feel attraction, we feel that we no longer have love. We see others as magnetic-like forces with the power to attract or repel us. But are we really helpless magnets compelled to move toward Read more…
You have probably heard of the five love languages, but are you familiar with the five languages of apology?[1] Here’s the basic idea: there are five components to a full apology. Many people find that one of those components is especially important to them. An apology with just that one Read more…
We can call bitter “sweet,” if we want. That’s nothing new. (See Isaiah 5:20.) But this semantic violence fails to produce anything more than confused thinking: changing labels does not change essence. If we call homosexual union “a marriage,” then we need another word for this: God’s design for one man and Read more…
How can you encourage spiritual growth in your husband? You could try leaving tracts on your husband’s pillow, reading Scripture loudly when he walks by, or keeping yourself busy by attending lots of church functions. You could, … but please don’t! It won’t work, and both of you will be miserable! Read more…
Women, do you ever wish that your husband were more of a leader in your marriage … or more involved with the family? If so, you are not alone. Women often say that they long for their husbands to become stronger leaders; some wives even say that they feel desperate Read more…
Big boys are everywhere, but where are the men? Where are the men who stand taller than passivity? Where are the men who are mighty in marriage? There are such men. There are real men who have the strength to shoulder responsibility, the nobility to keep promises, and the character Read more…
Are you giving your spouse your best “bread” or the leftover “crumbs”? When Jesus spoke with the Greek woman about the children’s bread and the pet dogs under the table, He was not belittling her; He was explaining His priorities and being faithful to His calling. Our spouses are our Read more…
The Hebrew word yada can be used broadly to mean “to know.” However, it can also be used in a specific way to refer to knowing personally and directly. Yada often means involvement, revealing, or relational intimacy. It can even refer to physical intimacy, as in Genesis 4:1: “Now Adam Read more…
Rough bark scraped across the man’s bare chest as he rushed to crouch in the gathering darkness of the trees. An unfamiliar sense of guilt threatened to suffocate the man. His frantic attempts to cover himself had failed to ease his shame, just as the thin veil of dusk did Read more…
How can we best understand the essence of worship? There may be no better illustration of spiritual worship than physical marriage. What marriage is between a man and woman is what worship is between God and His people. Although marriage and worship are expressed in and enhanced by activity, both Read more…
You may have guessed that we would not be able to watch the dancing king without noticing the seething shadow up in the palace window. If the king had noticed, it may have been because he felt the scathing heat of that shadow reaching him even in the streets below. Read more…
How do you see your marriage–as a power struggle? a fight for your rights? a duty? a trap? Let me suggest a radically different perspective. What if you saw your participation in your marriage as an act of worship? If you will see your “wife-ing” or your “husband-ing” as an Read more…
King David of Old Testament fame earned stellar marks as a musician, warrior, and king; but as a family man, he quite nearly flunked. However, on the day that he brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, he dramatically demonstrated several characteristics of a godly husband and father: 1. Read more…
I salute you! Your heart for reconciliation reveals the very heart of God, and your faithfulness to covenant reflects the faithfulness of God, which “reaches to the skies.” We will break our loyalty to our covenant partners the day God breaks His loyalty to us, His covenant partners. I commend Read more…
Forget your marriage. Why would someone who is committed to encouraging marriages tell you to forget your marriage? What I mean is this: Focus on your spouse, not on your marriage. Trying to achieve a certain kind of marriage can make us crazy! This is misplaced energy; we are actually off-target when Read more…
When we are wronged, how can we handle our anger? We answer that best when we look at what God does when He is wronged. John Piper considers this in his book This Momentary Marriage: “But even though God has never done anything that legitimately provokes our anger at him, Read more…
In reading “my new favorite book on marriage,” I was interested to discover an entire chapter devoted to the topic of anger. Author John Piper bases much of his discussion in This Momentary Marriage on the Biblical directives given in Ephesians 5:21 through 6:4. When the apostle Paul speaks to Read more…
“Yes! Yes! That’s right! That’s it!” That was my ongoing mental refrain as I read This Momentary Marriage by John Piper last week. It is an excellent primer on marriage, dealing with the most basic, most essential, and most profound aspects of marriage, such as the purpose of marriage, the Read more…
“Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Romans 15:7, RSV). The apostle Paul gave this instruction to all believers in Christ. But Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointed out that these words also create an excellent guideline for husbands and wives to apply specifically in their marriages. While Read more…
Though I speak to my spouse using diplomatic “I feel” messages and skillful conflict-resolution strategies, but do not love, I am become as sounding brass or as a car alarm that won’t shut off. And though I have an advanced degree in marriage counseling and understand the mysteries of why Read more…
What card are you holding in your hand? One day soon, you’ll play that very card before God. Imagine this: As you stand before God one day, He says, “Lay down your card.” On the table before you, you lay down your ragged card, the card which you’ve been carrying Read more…
Old Testament Nazarites, such as Samson, wore long hair as a symbol of consecration to God. In the New Testament, married women wore long hair as a symbol of marital consecration. The Scriptures say that this sign of submission is important “because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10, NIV). Could Read more…
When Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan, was He cognizant of the fact that He Himself would soon be in the same situation of being exposed before others? As He hung on the cross, Jesus experienced all of the varying “responses to nakedness.” There were accusers (like the Read more…
Do you think of one more person in the Scriptures who lay naked and vulnerable before others? Jesus told the story of a man who was brutally attacked by robbers on the road leading from Jerusalem to Jericho. In this parable, we again see contrasting responses to nakedness: 1. Both Read more…
