The wonders and joys and trials of marriage have been
written about for many centuries. Ever since Adam and Eve first kissed in the garden, it has been an ongoing challenge to turn a marriage into a good marriage and then to turn a good marriage into a GREAT MARRIAGE. I would suggest to you that we all have the ability to have and enjoy a GREAT MARRIAGE. There are many things that are critical to making that a reality. Here are just a few for you to consider:
1. Commit Entirely – After you have said “I do” and you take those first steps towards life together, it is so important to lock into the vision of “life together.” If we have the understanding that our commitment will last only until the problems begin, then our relationship is bound to fail. Our commitment needs to be unconditional. It needs to be “I Love You” and not “I love you if…” A love based on conditions will eventually fail. Columnist Doug Larson wrote this about marriage: “More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.” Have a commitment to get through the early years of marriage so you can enjoy the “better years.” Mark Twain said it this way: “Love seems the swiftest but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.”
2. Love Selflessly – All too often the primary reason that marriages end in divorce is that one or both partners feel that their needs aren’t being met. “I’m not getting what I want out of this marriage.” It’s the My and I syndrome.
- My needs
- My wants
- My expectations.
Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner said of marriage: “Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” Get outside of yourself for a minute. Are you being “the right mate” for your partner? Are your selflessly loving? Professor Jerry McCant said, “You can never be happily married to another until you get a divorce from yourself. Successful marriage demands a certain death to self.” If we invest ourselves in building up our spouse and truly loving our spouse, we begin building a lasting marriage.
3. Forgive Endlessly – Another cornerstone of a GREAT MARRIAGE is becoming a master at forgiveness. Much like commitment, forgiveness needs to be unconditional. If we can have the grace to forgive, we extend love and acceptance to an imperfect spouse. In an environment of unconditional love and forgiveness, we experience both giving and receiving the Godly quality of grace. Billy Graham’s daughter Ruth Bell Graham said, “A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” Forgive one another… as I have forgiven you - Colossians 3:13.
Just a few Common Sense basics on how to have a GREAT MARRIAGE.
Sometimes our marriages, just like the shop, get all cluttered up. We begin with small problems. Those problems, when left unresolved, cause other problems. A husband may have a habit of not remembering to call when coming home late from work. At first, his wife gets upset about the cold dinners, eating alone and disappointed children. She lets him know how upset she is about his lack of consideration, and then she nags him about it for several months with no fruit. He gets upset about the nagging, and she eventually quits bringing it up, burying her feelings. Resentment and bitterness fester causing a noticeable distance in their relationship. He comments about how cold she has become and how he misses being affectionate. She responds in cold silence. He is totally unaware that his lack of consideration has snowballed into a mini cold war. What started as a simple problem grew into a huge problem. Over time, add five or six other issues into the mix, compounded by unspoken needs and expectations, and you have a real mess. Just like the shop. And you’re left wondering how you begin to get this mess cleaned up.
e hook and try to cast. After a few practice casts, you land the line in the water. You fish in this manner for several hours. Knowing that fishing takes patience, you repeat this process for several weeks, then months. In all that time, you never catch one fish. Truth be told, you have never even had a nibble. By now you are extremely frustrated. Fishing just doesn’t work.
bad. There had to be something that could be done. So, with a pad of paper and pencil (yes it was that long ago) I sat down with them for several hours. We started with a detailed list of all their bills. Rent, car payments, food and utilities, insurance, personal items, child care expenses. Sure enough, the budget was tight, really tight. After a few hours, I noticed that I was starting to get a headache. And then I noticed that the room was filled with cigarette smoke. I don’t smoke and will usually get a headache from being in smoke for too long. Ah, I thought to myself. Another budget item not yet mentioned. I asked how much did they smoke and they admitted that they each smoked a pack of cigarettes per day. I asked how much does a pack cost? Well, about $1.50. (Yep, like I said, it was that long ago) Here’s the Common Sense part. At $1.50 per day each, that’s $3.00 per day. That’s $90.00 per month to buy cigarettes. I sat back and said that you do have enough money for milk for the babies, you’re just smoking it.