Confrontation in the Consecration

It has been a while since my last post marriage, and a lot has happened during that time. God closed the door on my job of five years, the one that brought us back to Texas after 20 years in Alabama. In the midst of the tension and chaos, God has been working, He is always working. His word teaches that He is working all things for our good, though often times we don’t see it or understand it.

In the tension between our understanding and His working, we often find ourselves struggling to align or follow. It is important to remember that often times what God is doing in our lives for our good, doesn’t look like, feel like, or resemble goodness to us. However, much like the clay on the potter’s wheel, if it could express joy or pain, though the process of molding is painful and hard, the result in the end is glorious and joyful.

These past few months have been both joyous and hard at the same time. Painful and life infusing all at once. However I know without a doubt that God initiated and directed this short time period and it has been for my good. As I have worked to consecrate myself to Him, I have at the same time experienced confrontation with my faults, fractures, and my fears. We have accomplished so much regarding our Marriage Ministry with God’s help. More to come on that in the near future. The following truths have sprung from the deep wells of wisdom that God has drawn my wife and into over the past few months. I pray that each of you find a nugget or two for your own life and marriage relationship.

In Marriage as in Life

The Marriage relationship was never meant to be a contractual agreement, as many believe it to be today. Marriage is covenantal, it is a covenantal institution created by God, protected by law, and ratified by public witness. (Legally binding, public agreement). This is not so hard to understand, but there is a second truth about marriage that I would say, most do not understand fully. Marriage is “confrontational”.

Marriage exposes our faults, fears, and fractures, forcing us to confront and deal with them within ourselves. Those times when you are irritated with your spouse, when he or she is getting on your last nerve, and you feel like you just can’t take it anymore. Maybe the problem does not lie with them? Maybe, just maybe God is using the close relationship you have with your spouse to reveal areas in need of improvement in your life.

Marriage and the Gospel

The Gospel is both offensive and glorious all at the same time. It is offensive because it reveals to us that we are not as good as we perceive ourselves, and that we in ourselves can do nothing to fix it. Yet at the same time it reveals to us how much we are loved and cherished, that the Father knowing us as we are, gave His son for us, reconciling us to himself. Not willing to leave us as we are, but to make us into the image of His Son, Jesus.

Ephesians 5:25-27 shows us that Marriage is like the gospel in that it is designed to reveal our faults and fears, and cleanse and grow us. “Husbands, lover your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her the the washing of water, by the word, that He might present her to Himself, a glorious church. Not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she be holy and without blemish”.

God, through Paul is speaking to men, but He is revealing a truth to both spouses, the purpose of marriage is to lift one another up, working with God to grow and develop the masterpiece that we were each designed to be for the kingdom. In this process is the confrontation, and it is a confrontation with ourselves. If we understand this, then it is much easier to focus on the process and pruning, rather than our spouse, who we often want to blame for the irritation, or the pain.

Practical steps ease the pain!

1. Remember your spouse is not your enemy! We have a real spiritual enemy and it isn’t your spouse. “BUT”, it also helps to understand that “YOU”, your self centeredness is the closest, most dangerous enemy to your marriage.
2. Strive to be other’s centric rather than self centric.
3. Submit! The hardest thing about being a living sacrifice is that we keep trying to get off the altar. Struggling just extends the process and time. It is for your good.
4. Recognize when you are placing blame on your spouse, and apologize. It takes a much bigger person to apologize and admit wrong, than it does to win the battle.
5. Forgive! If we choose to fail in forgiving others, we will continue around confrontation mountain until we get it right. A wise man once said, “you cannot give away what you don’t already have”. If you have not received or allowed forgiveness within yourself, you cannot forgive others.
6. Love, even when you don’t feel like it. The biblical view of love is always action oriented. Action first, then comes emotion. Covenantal love says I will regardless. Model this behavior and see what happens.
7. Stop worrying so much about being right. How many arguments to we have that stem out of nothing. Some small disagreement set’s it off, a small irritant, and next thing you know it is world war 3! Neither of us willing to concede or admit wrong. Another one of the wise men once said, “Even if you are right, if you are right in the wrong way, you are wrong”! It is OK to be wrong, it’ll put you in the right! ; )

Thanks to all of you for playing along, I hope to start doing more of these, sharing the vast teaching that we have received over the past months on the foundational concepts of marriage.

Remember all of life is ministry!