Never let anyone with a long marriage convince you it was a long marriage because it was so perfect and wonderful. These kinds of testimonies are dilutions and are not very helpful to anyone.
What is helpful to troubled marriages is confessing that no marriage is perfect, it is hard work and it can be victorious when both parties are committed, however without the Lord a marriage cannot be truly harmonious.
Love is not performance-based, it is Christ based. He loves us even though we are imperfect and He loves us even when we sin against Him.
Christ is grieved when we disobey Him because of His love for us. He does not stop loving us. He will love us through discipline to bring us back to our relationship with Him. His love goes beyond feelings to practical heart changes.
When we love our spouse we are grieved when they sin against us but we do not stop loving them.
When a spouse is willing to discard a spouse because they were grieved by sin in their mate, it is likely God's kind of love is not in their heart.
This love is not about accepting the bad in us but it is about caring so much about one another that we are willing to sacrifice our own desires and hopes for the sake of the other person. Would you say Christ sacrificed Himself for the sake of mankind to the point of death? In the most sacrificial way anyone could, Jesus Christ shed all His blood to pay for our sin, that He never committed. We deserved that death but He died and we can live because of it. All that is necessary is to confess we are sinners and trust in Him and what He did on that cross.
Most people nowadays think they cannot love someone when they think differently or have sinned. A correction is seen as hate and an expression of contempt. The devil loves this because if he can cause people to be intimidated into silence at every turn no one will change or grow, except sin, it will grow and dominate the entire culture and has done just that.
1 Corinthians 11 tells us that it is good to be married and better to remain single if one wants to fully serve the Lord.
Marriage grows us if we are open to looking at our own flaws and deficits and able to recognize those things in our spouse. We help one another see our need for growth. This only works well if the Bible, God's Word is the basis of obedience to Christ. If we place Christ first then our spouse will be second, our children third then our brothers and sisters in Christ.
If there are no problems then there is no growth. Life is BootCamp for the born-again believer and so is marriage. Those who want to be free of problems are in a sense sort of lazy.
There were many times when I just wanted to avoid problems or bail myself out somehow. Then the Lord reminded me there was something for me to learn about myself and about others through the trials. Life does not come without trials, if we try to avoid them God will make sure another one comes to help us learn our lessons.
1 Peter 1:7
"7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
James 1:2-8 "Consider it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you encounter various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. 4 And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
5 But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For that person ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord,
8 being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways."
If we can learn to confess our feelings and then evaluate them according to the word we will ignore them to do what is right. Our feelings lie to us, they tell us things are bad when they are good and that things are good when they are bad. The devil loves to use feelings to cause sinful actions in us. If we follow our feelings we will be blinded and undiscerning.
Marriage is not easy but it is worthwhile and a great blessing if the principles of Christ are followed for the purpose of honoring Him and blessing our spouse.
Just because your marriage isn't perfect does not mean the marriage isn't good.
Hallelujah!!!
