Is your marriage stalling out? In a dry season? Need some energy?
Continuing to use the acrostic V-A-L-E-N-T-I-N-E, here’s another idea to help make this a blessed month of growth and change in biblical love in marriage.
E – Energize your marriage
The word “engergize” means “to give vitality and enthusiasm to.” Does your marriage need some life, some energy, some revving up!!
No matter if you have been married a few years or 68 years, there’s always the temptation for the relationship to slip into neutral, into coasting mode. Truth is, no marriage operates in neutral. We are either moving forward or going in reverse. We are investing in our relationship or making withdrawals. We are working on our marriage or tearing it down.
How can vitality and enthusiasm be added to your marriage?
Check your heart. It always begins with you first and then your spouse. Is everything right between you and God? Are you walking in sweet fellowship with Him in daily newness of life in Christ (Romans 6:4)? The heart of every issue is an issue of the heart. An energized heart brings life to a dry marriage or throws another “log on the fire” of a thriving marriage!! Go give your spouse a big hug accompanied with a long, lingering kiss followed by looking into their eye and saying, “I love you with all my heart!!!”
An energized heart brings life to a dry marriage or throws another “log on the fire” of a thriving marriage!!
Do something out of the ordinary. This winter my wife and I moved our oak kitchen table upstairs to the family room and placed it in front of the big windows. We’ve eaten all our meals there including some romantic dinners, played games, sat and talked after our meals, and enjoyed the change. Yes, it’s a little trouble taking our plated-up food, glasses, tableware, etc., upstairs but the change has been worth it! The change added vitality to meal time!
Be abundant forgivers. Holding a grudge, expecting an apology, being “historical” (remembering all offenses for days, years) and/or becoming bitter will imprison your spouse, harden your heart, and make your marriage miserable. Forgiveness is the path to freedom.
You say, “That is so difficult! You don’t know what my spouse has done to me!” May I graciously ask you to spend quiet, intentional time meditating on Matthew 11:28-30, and then go the cross. Stay there awhile as you consider the complete forgiveness we have through the blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7-2:2). Meditate deeply on Ephesians 4:32b, “Forgiving one another; even as God in Christ forgave you,” and Colossians 3:13, “Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
Then run to the empty tomb! There you will find the victory in Christ. “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ” (2 Corinthians 2:14), and “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:57-58).
Today, put some spark in your marriage! Rev up the engine! Enjoy the journey!
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