Let God in Your Marriage

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that I’m not the perfect husband. For that matter, I’ve never been a perfect husband and I probably never will. I can try all I want, but somehow it just doesn’t seem to happen. Somehow or other, I manage to mess up from time to time.

All right, we can do the cop out thing on this and just say something like, “Hey, I’m human, what do you expect?” That’ll work, but like I said, it’s a bit of a copout. I’m not really into copouts. I guess they’re just too easy. I’d rather do something about my imperfections than make excuses for them. At least that way I’m making progress in my life.

So, if I’m not perfect and I want to be, obviously I need some help. That’s why I read what others write about marriage. While much of it is stuff I’ve heard before, there’s plenty of it which I haven’t. I can always find some nugget of truth to be gained from other people’s writings, especially certain people who I’ve learned to trust (see my links page to find them).

Even reading their stuff isn’t enough. While it helps, just reading doesn’t mean doing. Somehow, I’ve got to get it from the eye bone to the heart bone and from there into the action bones. That’s a whole lot harder than just reading it; especially when it’s something that I really don’t want to do.

That’s actually the key to not being successful in marriage, that part about what I want to do and what I don’t want to do. If I let my own will and desires control my marriage, it’s going to be a disaster. That makes for a self-centered marriage, which never works. Marriage, any marriage, can only be successful when it is other centered, not self-centered.

That’s where God needs to come into the marriage. As long as I leave Him out of my marriage, I’m going to try and put myself on the throne, as king of my marriage and king of my home. But, when I let him take the throne, then that changes everything. If I’m not on the throne, I won’t be focused on what I want, but what makes Him happy; and what makes Him happy is when I act with love towards my wife. As Jesus said, “A new commandment I give unto you, love your wife as I have loved you.” Okay, okay, it really doesn’t say that, it says “love one another.” But, c’mon now, isn’t your wife a “one another?”

When God is on the throne of my marriage and both my wife and I are working to serve Him, then we are working together towards a common goal. That builds relationship. Instead of marriage being me doing my thing and her doing her thing, with us getting together once in a while; we’re being together, as we work to satisfy what God wants for us.

You know something? When we do things that way, we always win. Why do we win? Because He makes sure that we do. Isn’t that great? By quitting trying to win and focusing on letting God win, we win. Man, it can’t get any better than that.

So, the real question you need to ask yourself today is: have you let God take the throne in your marriage?