Manna for Marriage

Tag: help for marriage

  • An Open Letter to a Hurting Husband

    An Open Letter to a Hurting Husband

    I know that you are hurting in your marriage. And I realize that it might seem easier to just walk away.

    But you haven’t.

    I commend you for that because God doesn’t walk away from His covenant partner, either.

    Take hope!

    Although there has been pain in your marriage, you can have immense hope in the unfailing goodness of God. As you seek to honor God in your marriage, you can be confident that God will enable you to do that. The Scriptures give this encouragement to you:

    Do not be discouraged, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God fights for you.¹

    God’s heart is for you. He is for healing. God has obligated Himself to act on behalf of those who are in covenant with Him.

    Author and pastor Dave Harvey says,

    God is completely, totally, enthusiastically supportive of your every effort to build a strong, God-glorifying marriage.

    You can succeed.

    You are able to succeed powerfully as a husband. God has created your spirit for strength and for greatness. Regardless of your wife’s actions, you can excel as a husband through your commitment and devotion to her.

    This success as a husband is rooted in your commitment to God. It is not based on your wife’s reaction or behavior.

    Marriage is not something you wrestle out with your wife. Instead, marriage is something you wrestle out with God, just as Jacob did at the Jabbok River. Wrestle until you are able to submit to the blessing.

    You succeed as a husband as you remember your pledge before God in the presence of witnesses to love this woman and to be faithful to her “till death do you part.” Remember that you made a sacred vow; and by the enabling of the Spirit of God Himself, stand with strength to fulfill that pledge.

    You commit to fulfill your solemn oath with honor and with integrity, regardless of the cost, because mighty men of God choose to act as God Himself acts. As bearers of His image, godly men uphold covenant promises as God does: with steadfast faithfulness, unintimidated by the threat of loss and undeterred by the pain of sacrifice.

    You succeed as a man of strength and greatness when you say to your wife:

    I am completely committed to you.

    I devote myself to you and to you alone. There are no “back-up” plans.

    Even if you reject me, I will continue to be committed to your good as long as there is breath in me. To whatever extent that you will permit me, and as is appropriate, I will strive to bless you and to serve you.

    I will lay down my life in order to minister to you. I will lay down my self-interests and self-focus.

    None of this is contingent upon anything you do. This is my unconditional pledge to you, offered in obedience to God.

    Even if you should want me out of your life, I will continue to commit to you alone and will serve you by my fervent prayers.

    You are able to do this as you recognize that the great need of your life is for God Himself. Know that He has promised personally to be your great Reward. Like the apostle Paul, resolve to make knowing Christ the determined purpose of your life.²

    You can be satisfied.

    God desires to satisfy every longing of your heart, and He is able to satisfy you fully. He does not satisfy those who are looking elsewhere for satisfaction, but He does satisfy abundantly those who are passionate and hungry and desperate for Him. For those who commit themselves to belonging to Him exclusively, He satisfies supremely.

    With Christ as your sustainer and as the satisfier of your life, you are able to stand with strength as a man and with success as a husband.

    In the beginning, the earth was formless, empty, and dark. By the work of the Spirit, God created new life—things of beauty and things of excellence. Your marriage may seem shattered, empty, and dark right now. As you yield to the Spirit of God, invite Him to hover over your life and marriage, creating and restoring all that is “very good.”

    Even if your wife should reject this miracle of renewal in your relationship, it can be a wonderful reality in your own spirit and life.

    In general, when a husband creates a solid foundation of relational security for his wife, she will meet him there and will work with him to build the relationship upon that foundation of commitment. It is that commitment to one another’s good and to the relationship itself that gives strength to a marriage.

    Many past hurts and frustrations are resolved
    not by rehearsing the hurts or by reviewing the resentments
    but by renewing a firm commitment to the relationship.

    “Love covers over a multitude of sins,” and it is a man’s “glory to overlook an offense.”³ Resolve that nothing will thwart your commitment to your relationship with your bride.

    You can gain honor.

    Your wife may reject your offer of relationship and may limit your expressions of service to her, but absolutely no one can deter your commitment to her. It is that commitment which glorifies you and which God honors. As the husband, you bear on your shoulders accountability for the relationship. The wife is responsible for her own choices, but you are uniquely accountable for the relationship. When you provide a solid foundation of commitment, you are encouraging and enabling your wife to commit on her part and to join in successful marriage-building. But if the man’s offer of commitment is conditional, then the woman perceives this as thin ice rather than as firm footing which she can trust.

    The husband has the God-given ability to meet the woman’s core need for relational security. The wife looks to the man to provide this first. It is his glory to do so, and it is his greatest success to continue to do so.

    —————————————————————-

    ¹ Deuteronomy 31:6, 8; Isaiah 41:10; Joshua 1:9, 23:10
    ² Genesis 15:1: Philippians 3:8
    ³ 1 Peter 4:8; Proverbs 19:11

  • Hope for a Hurting Husband

    Hope for a Hurting Husband

    “Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.” (Amos 9:11, NLT)

    I know that you are asking God to fulfill these words in your marriage, and I earnestly join you in that prayer, believing that God’s heart is strong for healing and reconciliation. But I also know that at this moment, you sense only cold silence and closed doors. 

    I want to encourage you that you are not alone in your pain, God is not discouraged, and His plan for your life is not in tatters. 

    “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, NIV)

    God is not limited by your emotions. You can feel low and yet have strong faith. As you set your will to follow God, He works powerfully through your yielded spirit. 

    “Therefore, since we do hold and engage in this ministry by the mercy of God …, we do not get discouraged (spiritless and despondent with fear) or become faint with weariness and exhaustion.” (1 Corinthians 4:1, AMPC)

    I pray that the following five truths will strengthen you today.

    1. God’s mighty purposes for your life and your marriage are not thwarted. 

    “I know that You can do anything and no plan of Yours can be thwarted.”
    (Job 42:2, HCSB)

    God is still using your marriage to draw you closer to Him. The Spirit is still using you to show those around you what God looks like. You have the opportunity to reveal God as a forgiving God, full of generous grace, unfailing commitment, and unconditional love. In fact, it is when our marriages are difficult that we are most able to demonstrate these awesome attributes of God.

    And when our marriages are difficult, we are often able to see our own hearts better. When a spouse is warm and supportive, we may believe that we are more loving than we really are. “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours” is usually a  pleasant transaction, not a self-denying sacrifice. But when we serve a spouse without receiving appreciation or even acknowledgment, then our inner responses reveal our true motivation. 

    As others have pointed out, when we are treated like servants, we quickly learn whether we have servant’s hearts or not! When we are not receiving positive feedback, we have the privilege to serve purely for the sake of love.

    2. Your calling to cherish and to care for your covenant partner has not changed.

    How you carry out that task has changed, but you can still love her well.

    Always, you can provide a covering of earnest prayer for your wife. Praying faithfully is one of the most significant and most powerful things you will ever do. The greatest accomplishment of your life may be your perseverance in prayer for your wife and children, sharing God’s burdened heart for them.

    “Your prayers are God’s way of accomplishing the victory of Jesus Christ over this world.” (John Piper, desiringgod.com)

    You can always fight on your knees!

    “Don’t be afraid of the enemy! Remember the Lord, who is great and glorious, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes!” (Nehemiah 4:14, NLT)

    3. God allows you to wrestle honestly with Him. 

    Many times, we understand that our spouses’ resistance toward our marriages may actually be resistance to God. But it can be much harder to recognize our own inner struggles as wrestling matches with God.

    As we churn with turmoil and darkness in our spirits, we usually focus on our spouses and the conflict between us. But we may need to recognize that we are actually struggling with God. 

    Deep down, we may feel that He should not have allowed this pain in our lives or that He is not being a good God to us. We may believe that He has failed us or is negligent in keeping His promises. We may wonder if he is a God worth following even through intense suffering. Is He truly sufficient to satisfy the longings of our hearts?

    Simply recognizing that we are struggling with God can be very helpful because then we can verbalize our troubling thoughts and begin to deal effectively with these core issues.

    In the Old Testament, we learn that the patriarch Jacob wrestled with God at the Jabbok River (Genesis 32:22-31). In my life, I wrestled with God in fear and confusion, but eventually, I learned that God wanted only to bless me.

    4. This is your opportunity to come against the enemy like never before. 

    It is good to worship God in the light, but it is powerful to worship Him in the darkness. Prison bars are broken and chains are snapped when God’s people worship in the darkness of their pain.

    Long before Jacob wrestled with God, he encountered God on another difficult night. Jacob was running for his life when he stopped to sleep on the hard ground, using an even harder stone as his pillow. In the middle of the night, God met Jacob in the middle of his crisis, and there God gave Jacob strong promises. The next day, Jacob took the stone, set it up, and poured oil over it, turning it into an altar of worship before the Lord. 

    You, too, can meet with God in the dark and hard places of your life. You can take the stone of suffering in your life and set it up as an altar to God. As you surrender to the goodness of God, an outpouring of the Spirit of God will be like oil flowing over your spirit. Your worship on hard ground will create a sacred place to encounter the Living God and to experience His promises and His presence.

    I do not take your pain lightly. The rejection of a spouse can be more devastating than the death of a spouse, and it can be difficult to know how to process the grief in healthy ways. Give yourself much grace, pour your heart out to God, and soak in His love. Meditate on His fervent love for you personally, and be aware of His Presence with you. He is attentive to you. He is careful and tender, mindful of every detail in your life. He will love you well.

    God has a high purpose, lasting significance, and a true honor for you. The enemy cannot thwart the purposes of God for you. There is no darkness that is darkness to God. There is no confusion, wavering, or bewilderment with God. Even in our darkness, He is light (Micah 7:8).

    This is an immense opportunity for you! You are being invited to invade enemy territory—to plant the flag of Christ in victory, proclaiming that the love of God is stronger than the rejection of people. The love of God is our healing, our thriving, our comfort, and our joy.

    5. God has called you to this, and He will make you successful—successful as a man who trusts his God and who faithfully fights the good fight. 

    You have not been tossed aside by God. You have been called to join in the suffering of Christ with joy for the sake of eternal victories and for the richer savoring of Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:24).

    Tune your ear to hear the voice of God. Refuse to listen to the lies of your enemy, Satan. He is the relentless accuser of your soul, and he comes only to steal and to destroy (John 10:10).

    Resist him! Stand firm in your faith, as your brothers throughout the world, are also doing (1 Peter 5:9-10). Draw strength from their example, and add strength to the Body through your example.

    Please do not shrink back (Hebrews 10:39). Please do not despise your calling. The Body of Christ needs you to be faithful where God has assigned you.

    Set your face and faith like flint, determined to do God’s will (Isaiah 50:7). You will not be shamed, and you will not be disappointed when you see what God has been doing through your yieldedness to Him (Romans 5:5). 

    “Your right hand, O LORD, is glorious in power. Your right hand, O LORD, smashes the enemy.” (Exodus 15:6, NLT)

    God is not defeated in your life. He is fighting, and He intends to show Himself glorious.

    “Be strong and courageous. … The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:7, NIV)

     ——————————-

    Other articles to encourage you:

    An Open Letter to a Hurting Husband
    Thank You!

  • The Power of a Torn Veil: Tetelestai

    “Tetelestai.“

    The last word that Jesus spoke before dying on the cross means, “It is finished.” The atoning work of Christ is complete. Our immense debt to God is paid in full.

    In Jerusalem

    While Jesus was hanging on a cross outside Jerusalem, a thick curtain was hanging inside the Jewish temple. This ornate veil marked a solemn boundary: the curtain was a physical barrier representing the spiritual separation between God and people. Some claimed that this curtain was so thick—maybe four inches thick—that horses could not have torn it apart.

    But when Christ died, God tore that veil apart from top to bottom. Through His own torn body, Jesus opened the way to God. He made Himself the door into the heart of God.

    In Relationship with God

    When God tore the curtain, He was throwing open the entrance into His presence, inviting us all to rich relationship with Him: “Come in, come in!”

    Tetelestai. The old covenant is finished.

    The old covenant is the system in which we must earn our acceptance. We must prove ourselves. In the old system, there are rewards and relationship for those who keep the rules, and there are punishments and separation for those fail.

    But Christ said, “Tetelestai.” The old covenant is finished. We have a new way now, a way of receiving instead of earning.

    God gives us relationship. He gives us acceptance. God gives us warm welcome and honor. He gives us unfailing love.

    welcome sign; tetelestai

    God says to us, “Tetelestai. No more earning. Come in, come in!” What a fantastic thing to hear!

    Tetelestai transforms our lives, entirely.

    In Marriage

    And tetelestai can transform our marriages—entirely.

    Very often, we put our spouse in the defendant’s seat while we climb to the judge’s bench. We stay busy and vigilant as both judge and prosecutor. Has my spouse earned my kindness? Has she earned my attention? Has he earned my respect? Has he earned my acceptance?

    We feel compelled to oversee justice before providing relationship, so we continually monitor our spouse’s behavior, measure our approval or displeasure, and mete out the consequences. All of these relational transactions drain our energy and dampen our enjoyment. Our marriages begin to carry more duty than delight.

    But there is a better way! We can say to our spouse, “Tetelestai! No more earning my love. I give you acceptance. I give you my commitment.”

    "open" sign on door; tetelestai

    We are no longer in the courtroom with God. Let’s not live in the courtroom with our spouse.

    ….. [Continue reading this article at StartMarriageRight.com HERE.]

  • An Interview with Ron and Jody Zappia (video): The Marriage Knot

    Marriage Knot

    It was a pleasure for me to interview Ron and Jody Zappia today as they explained “the seven choices that keep couples together.” As you watch this video, you will hear what those marriage-changing choices are, and you will also learn more about the Zappias’ own personal story of a marriage-in-crisis that God transformed as a marriage-in-Christ.

    Marriage Knot; Zappia

    You can read more about all of this in Ron and Jody’s new book, published by Moody, called The Marriage Knot. There is much wisdom in this easy-to-read, practical book, which I reviewed recently on MannaForMarriage (HERE).

    I pray that this interview will be an encouragement to you!

    An Interview with Ron and Jody Zappia: The Marriage Knot

  • 3 Tips to Transform Any Marriage (A Webinar and a Winner)

    Most successful couples practice this one skill. In fact, this skill is so important to a healthy relationship that the direction of a marriage can be predicted based on this skill alone. Do you know what that is?

    Another practice is so powerful in marriage that couples who make this a habit have a divorce rate of less than one percent. Wow! Do you know what that habit is?

    Webinar

    Anyone can develop these skills and begin to use them immediately. In a webinar last week, Dr. Jessica McCleese and I discussed three tips that will transform any marriage. We used the acronym MAP to discuss those three practices.

    You can watch the webinar replay HERE.

    jessica Jessica is a licensed psychologist who uses biblical principles to help couples improve their marriages. I very much enjoyed working with Jessica on the webinar, which she hosted through her website. You can view the webinar on YouTube HERE.

    Winner

    Thank you to all who entered the drawing for the book giveaway this week. Congratulations, Ken!  Ken will be receiving a copy of Gary Chapman’s latest release.

    chapman

    As always, you are invited to join our weekly prayer time on Thursdays, or listen to the recordings HERE. If you would like us to pray for you by name, just let me know. We consider it a privilege to pray for marriages and families.

    Blessings to you,
    Tami

  • 7 Prayers for Your Marriage

    One of the best things you can do for your marriage is to pray.

    And one of the best ways to pray is to use the Scriptures as a guide.

    That is because the secret to prayer—just like the secret to marriage—is unity. When two wills line up together, there is great power!

    As we study the Bible, we learn the longings of God’s heart. As we allow God’s desires to become ours, we move into harmony with Him. Through this union, the Spirit of God works in awesome ways, restoring what has been damaged and creating new beauty.

    Below are seven Scriptural prayers for your marriage, one for each day of the week. Perhaps you and your spouse would like to pray these verses together as you ask God to protect and strengthen your marriage. If your spouse isn’t interested in praying with you, don’t be discouraged—just keep praying!

    Click HERE to read the 7 prayers at StartMarriageRight.com.

  • Top 10 Tips for Marriage [with graphic]

    What are your best marriage tips?

    I recently listed my top 10 tips for marriage here: 10 Simple-but-Powerful Ways to Build Your Marriage.

    The article explains each tip, but this chart gives a summary of the ten points:

    top 10 tips for marriage

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    What would you add to that list? I would be interested to hear your suggestions.

    Blessings to you,
    Tami