Following Christ English

5) Accept the Reality of Your Decision. Everyone comes into marriage with their own hurts, wounds, and spiritual “baggage.” Maybe your wife’s siblings teased her. Maybe your husband’s former girlfriend cheated on him and broke his heart. Maybe your spouse’s parents were abusive, or neglectful. The possibilities, sadly, are endless. Before a casual relationship morphs into a permanent commitment, many men and women see a hurting person and think, I want to help them. But something about marriage often turns that around and makes us say, “Why does he have to be that way?” Our spouse’s needs once elicited feelings of nurture and compassion; now those same hurts tempt us toward bitterness and regret. Before we get married is the time to make a character-based judgment (“Do I really want to live with this person’s wounds?”) Once the ceremony has ended, God challenges us to maintain an attitude of concern and nurture instead of resentment and frustration. Can you maintain a soft

4) Accept the Call to Praiseworthy Thinking. I have found Philippians 4:8 as relevant for marriage as it is for life: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Obsessing over your spouse’s weaknesses won’t make them go away. You may have done that for years—and if so, what has it gotten you, besides more of the same? Author and speaker Leslie Vernick warns, “Regularly thinking negatively about your husband increases your dissatisfaction with him and your marriage.” You will have to have to fight the natural human tendency to obsess over your mate’s weaknesses. When I urge you to affirm your spouse’s strengths, I’m not minimizing their many weaknesses. I’m just encouraging you to make the daily spiritual choice of focusing on qualities for which you feel thankful. To make this realistic, you have to keep in mind that no man or woman is

1) Accept the Reality of Human Relationships. James 3:2 lays out the human condition as clearly and as succinctly as anyone can: “We all stumble in many ways.” Think about the impact of the words “all” and “many.” What James is telling us is that if you were to divorce your spouse, interview two hundred “replacement” candidates, put them through a battery of psychological tests, have follow-up interviews conducted by your closest friends, spent three years dating the most compatible ones, and then spent another forty days praying and fasting about which one to choose, you’d still end up with a spouse who disappoints you, hurts you, frustrates you, and stumbles in many ways. The word “all” means there are no exceptions. A new spouse might stumble in different ways, but he or she will still stumble. This is the reality of human relationships in light of sin. Your spouse is human; therefore, they stumble—and not just once or twice, but in many ways. Once I accept that my spous