A Moment for Marriage

This Valentine’s Day, Fall in Love with the Right Person

By Rob Flood

Valentine’s Day is a wonderful time to prioritize the love we have for one another in marriage. It is the time to shower loving appreciation upon one another and to thank God for marriage. It is also a great time to take stock in how you’re building your marriage and who you are loving in your marriage. Let me explain.

In most well-intentioned marriages, the difficulties that arise are caused by the same thing. And if that one thing can be addressed, thoroughly and realistically, lives and marriages could become radically changed. Here is THAT problem: most of us are in love with the wrong person.

Sure, we all can fall into the sin of loving ourselves more than anything or anyone else. Selfishness is a permanent fixture in our hearts, whether it takes center stage or not. But, by the grace of God, we are able to recognize selfishness and put it to death, or at least put it down for an 8-count every once in a while.

But I’m not talking about loving yourself. No, the wrong person many of us love most in our marriages is our spouse. (“What?! Surely, Rob must have typed that incorrectly.”) Nope: keep reading.

So much of our marital motivation is crafted around our real and well-intentioned love for our spouse. We want them happy. We want to love them in a way that they thoroughly enjoy. Our motivation for change is so often driven by love for our spouse.

However, if you’re anything like me, the power that such love produces fluctuates, sometimes drastically. It’s not that my love for my wife fluctuates. I genuinely and consistently love her. The thing that fluctuates is the power that I can derive from that love to fuel change.

She’s a sinner and so am I. My love for her cannot be trusted as a source or motivation for change or as a foundation of our marriage. It is too inconsistent and vulnerable. When my love for Gina is my greatest motivation, as wonderful as she may be, I’m in love with the wrong person. The same is true for you.

The only love that can be trusted, that can be counted on as a foundation for my marriage, is the love between us and God. The love God has for us came sealed with a sacrifice that purchased us. It came with the guarantee represented in the person of his Holy Spirit. He indwells us, powering and enabling all change. This love will never fail us. It will never leave us abandoned. It is not based on changing conditions, but on the completed work of Christ.

Our short-comings, failures, and sin in our marriages can be traced back to our failure to love God as we ought. And, if that is the origin of the problem, that must be where we find the solution. When our efforts to love are dried up, repeatedly rejected, and reduced to the mechanics, the answer is not loving your spouse more. There is no power for change there. There is no hope in that. The answer is loving your God more.

This is the whole point behind our marriages being gospel-centered. It is the point behind loving your husband as unto the Lord, loving your wife as unto the Lord. When we do so, we love with the power God provides. We love in utter dependence upon God. We love in faith.

This frees us as spouses to say “no” to loving ourselves. It frees us to say “no” to using our love for our spouse as the foundation for our marriage. And it frees us by providing a constant source of power and hope, realizing that no matter how we’ve failed, no matter how your spouse has failed, God is faithful to draw near to sin-stricken husbands and wives, dust us off, fill us with his Spirit, and send us back into the game.

What is the one thing that, if addressed, would radically change our lives and our marriages? It is turning from being in love with the wrong, and passionately pursuing genuine love for the Right Person.

This Valentine’s Day, love your spouse. This Valentine’s Day, love your God more!

NOTE: Check out my newly released book on marital communication: With These Words. You can purchase the book here or at Amazon.

Communication Do’s and Don’ts for Every Couple

By Rob Flood

Note: In celebration of the release of my book, With These Words, this blog is also running on the blog for my publisher New Growth Press. You can purchase the book here or at Amazon.

Want to know how to ruin a good novel? I can tell you: read the end first. I suppose any reader is free to do this, but knowing the ending removes one of the great joys and one of the essential experiences of reading: how we get there. The joy, the significance in the task of reading, is in the process of getting from the first page to the last. The process is the thing.

This principle is an oft-forgotten perspective for marital communication. If we could just look at the end to see if we are going to agree or not, if we think similarly or differently in the end, it could take all of the tension out of the conversation. But God is not primarily concerned with the end point of most of our conversations. He’s concerned with how we get there. It’s about the journey because that is where he most often meets us and changes us. For God, many times, the process of communication is the thing.

In the process of communicating with your spouse, I offer you three don’ts and three dos. When applied consistently, you’ll find they help you and your spouse honor God and one another throughout the process.

Three Communication Don’ts

Don’t Speak in Extremes (“You always” / “You never”): Measured and accurate speech is most useful when we are communicating, and it is even more significant in conversation with those we love, particularly spouses. When we use extremes such as “always” and “never,” we caricature a weakness or flaw we perceive. This makes our spouse feel judged, misrepresented, and misunderstood. It doesn’t help you either.

It is better to aim for accuracy and specificity. Rather than say, “You never listen to me…” you could say, “When you don’t listen to me…” Rather than complain, “You never take out the trash,” you could say, “You struggle to remember to take out the trash.” Extreme language inevitably leads to tension because it rarely is accurate. So, when speaking with your spouse, don’t speak in extremes.
Don’t Compare Your Spouse to Others: When we work alongside our coworkers, we often only see certain elements of the character and their lives. We don’t often get to see them as parent, spouse, son/daughter, sibling, neighbor. Our relationships with them are often, in this way, two-dimensional.

Marriage isn’t like that. Marriage is perhaps the most three-dimensional relationship we have. We see our spouse as spouse, parent, son/daughter, neighbor, home-owner, etc. We see all of the strengths and all of the weaknesses. We see the beauty and the ugliness of their character. This can often make us think that our spouse is the only one with these weaknesses and that others in our church or workplace have only strengths.

This is why comparison is so unhelpful. We take the reality of what our spouse is like, add on all of our sinful judgment as we enlarge their weaknesses, and then compare him/her to others we don’t know nearly as well. No three-dimensional husband can compete with a two-dimensional positive impression you’ve assumed true about a man. No three-dimensional wife can compete with a two-dimensional positive impression you’ve assumed about a woman.

Rather than compare, commit to receiving your spouse as God’s specific and carefully chosen gift for you. When you start comparing his gift to you with his gift to others, you bring judgment on the gift-giver. It is far better to see your spouse as God’s gift to you and ask his for sufficient grace to take your eyes off of the gifts he’s given to others.
Don’t Import History into a Current Issue: Most often, when conversations get tense, there is plenty of temptation to go around. Perhaps there’s been an offense. Perhaps it was negligence or some harsh word that started the tension. It never helps the situation when you go back into history and bring out all of the other things your spouse has done that have upset you.

If you’ve been on the receiving end of this tactic, you know it’s neither helpful nor fair. The actual situation that you’re dealing with is immediately enlarged to include anything and everything from the past. This only leads to division and will not lead to unity.

Rather, keep your conversations focused on what is actually on the table at the time. If items from the past need to be discussed, there will be a time to do that. Settle what is happening and re-establish unity in your marriage. That is a far better foundation upon which to have historical conversations anyway.

Three Communication Dos

Do Guard Your Tone and Your Language: Most often, calm and purposeful speech is that which is most helpful. Raised voices actually distract from content and create offense all by themselves. If your tone becomes snarky, salty, or sarcastic, it’s just not reasonable to expect your spouse to respond calmly, listening carefully to your words rather than the demeaning tone you’re using.

So, guard your tone and your language. Speak in a manner you would prefer to have used toward you. Remain respectful and calm and trust God to work through purposefully godly speech.
Do Go Out of Your Way to Express a Desire for Unity: When you create a list of the most helpful things for a godly and enjoyable marriage, unity must be on that list. When a husband and a wife, with their assorted strengths and ideas, are aiming at the same goal and living by the same rules, there is little that can divide or separate them. However, if a husband is playing by a different set of rules he’s holding his wife to, unity cannot long hold.

The Scriptures are saying a lot when they say that God made Adam and Eve one flesh. Beyond the sexual union of marriage, he is indicating that the husband cannot go one direction and the wife another; one flesh cannot go in two directions. There must be agreement. There must be harmony. There must be unity.

So, when a conversation seems to indicate a difference of perspective or opinion, reinforce the idea of unity. Remind your spouse that you want to keep in step with one another. Pause the conversation so you can pray for unity. If you see unity in serious danger, redouble your efforts. If a marital conflict has a winner and a loser, then it truly has two losers. No one wins in marriage when there is a loser.
Do Pray: Remember that God has much invested in your marriage. He is committed to help you to honor him so that your relationship reflects his with the church. You will do well to practice the reality that God is with you, consciously with you, when you are working through a conflict or a difficult conversation. You are not left alone to figure it out by yourself; he’s there with you.

Because of that glorious and helpful truth, pray. Pray as you listen that you would hear through tone to heart. Pray as you listen that God would help you love your spouse each moment. And, when it is your turn to speak, pray twice as hard. You’re far more likely to create more trouble with your tongue and lips than you are with your ears. Ask God to give you words that will edify, words that will communicate truth in love.

One Overarching “Do” for Everyone

Do Cultivate a Forgiving Posture toward One Another: Even as you try to employ these “dos” and “don’ts,” you will inevitably fall short. We all do at one point or another. This means your spouse will, too. So, cultivate a forgiving posture toward one another. Remember, though you are both dearly loved by God, you remain imperfect.

As followers of Christ, we are called to love as we are loved, to serve as we are served, and to forgive as we are forgiven. Christ loves us completely, serves us sacrificially, and forgives us unconditionally. Husband, love your wife in an understanding way. Wife, honor and respect your husband. In so doing, we prevent the enemy from getting any footholds and we show the world just how wonderful, just how honoring, just how God-glorifying marriage can truly be.

When Love Surpasses Fairness

By Rob Flood

You may remember the account of the two women standing before King Solomon, both claiming to be the mother of the same baby boy. (1 Kings 3:16ff) Each makes her case before the freshly crowned king, neither proving to be especially persuasive. So, after recounting his confusion, Solomon commands the unthinkable: “Bring me a sword.”

Solomon’s proposal was to split the boy in half…that way, the women could share the boy. Perhaps a less drastic “fair” proposal might have been shared custody, but Solomon was about the business of proving a point. So Solomon chose the most extreme form of fairness. While one of the women thought this was a fine idea, the other would have none of it:

Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death. (1 Kings 3:26)

Imagine, this woman was his rightful mother. Yet, rather than take the way of “fairness,” she chose the way of “love” at her own cost. Because of her love for the boy, she would rather give him away and do without him than see him destroyed. Of course, Solomon saw this maternal love and granted her full custody of the boy, delivering him from death.

This may cause you to think of another time where love surpassed fairness.

He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103:10)

The “fair” way to deal with fallen mankind is to sentence us to death, consigning our fate to hell. Could it be more fair? After all, we’ve earned it.

For the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23)

But God, from a place of love, chose to address the issue of fairness in another way. Rather than settle it with each of us, on the account of our sins, he chose to settle it on the cross of Christ.

For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

God has not dealt with us out of fairness. He has dealt with us out of love. We all stand on the favorable side of the fairness equation. We all stand indebted to a God of love.

So the next time your spouse says something unkind or even inaccurate, you have a choice to act out of “fairness” or “love.” The next time your children are clearly wrong, you have a choice to act out of “fairness” or “love.” Will you act as one who is in the right? Or will you act as one who is indebted to the love of a forgiving God? Could this be what God meant when he inspired these words?

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. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (Colossians 3:13-14)

The near future is bound to present all of us with a time when we are in the right, when someone in our lives is clearly in the wrong. Your heart may well up within you commanding the unthinkable: “Bring me a sword!” Catch yourself and remember your own indebtedness to our loving God. And remember that there really are times when love surpasses fairness.

Unchangeably Loved and Accepted

By Rob Flood

It is a wonderful thing to be known by our spouse: to feel understood, to know that you are truly loved as you are. For some, this reality comes and goes. For still others, this is just a hope, a wish. For these people, marriage is not a place where they are truly known and loved, but a place where they are judged, misunderstood, and taken for granted.

And so, we hold out hope that things will change. We long to be understood, to be truly loved, as we are. We long to be known and not rejected. The longing is a right one to have. If your marriage is one where this is a struggle, or even a seeming impossibility, I’m so sorry. We were designed by a loving Creator to be known and not rejected, to be loved as we are. Marriage is supposed to be a place where that happens, but there’s a reason for that. Marriage is designed to reflect the greater reality of how we are loved by God himself.

Consider Psalm 103 for a moment. If you have the time, read the whole thing. (You won’t regret it.) If not, at least consider these verses:

⁶The LORD works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. ⁷ He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. ⁸ The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. ⁹ He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. ¹⁰ He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. ¹¹ For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. ¹³ As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. ¹⁴ For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.

To be truly known and truly loved, we are to turn to the Lord first. We are to see his righteousness and justice on our behalf. We are to see his mercy and grace, his patience and love directed toward us. We are to see our sin, yes, but more so, we are to see his kindness in not repaying us according to our iniquities. We are to see that he knows our frame and has compassion on us, even though he knows the worst about us.

We are to see these things and rest. Rest, knowing that we are known. Rest, knowing that we are objects of mercy and grace, not wrath and condemnation. When we were unlovable and opposed to God, God loved us and drew us near. As high and as far as we can imagine, so great is God’s steadfast love toward us.

This may not fix your marriage, but it does answer a question that gets asked in rough situations. A husband or wife who feels unknown or unloved may often wonder, “Am I lovable or acceptable at all?” When that love doesn’t come through the place it ought (marriage), they a person in that place is often left with self-doubt and begins to believe lies about themselves.

Psalm 103 puts this to rest. God knows your frame. He gives compassion. He has mercy. He knows and he loves. And, if you are in Christ, he accepts you as you are on the basis of how Christ is.

It is a wonderful thing to be known by our spouse, to experience the grace and mercy that comes in a truly knowing and understanding marriage relationship. How much greater is the joy, the peace, and the comfort of resting in the great knowledge of Christ. He knows our frame, our flaws, our sin, and our weaknesses. In the face of those, God showers his children with love, compassion, and longsuffering. Though we still may pray that this type of love would manifest in a marriage, what a great comfort to know that you are loved this way by a holy God.

Majoring on Communication

by Rob Flood

Over a decade ago, I met a friend that continues to serve me and make our lives easier…my friend’s name is Google Calendar. Let me introduce you. Google Calendar allows you, your spouse, and anyone else you wish to view the same calendar. An event pops up in your life, you post it to the family “Google Calendar” and now everyone who you desire to view it can see it. It is a dynamic family calendar that helps us keep our schedules coordinated.

Now, let me confess something to you. With work, church, the lives of our teens, and keeping up with school events, life has made us so busy that we needed a common calendar. With this type of pressing from our schedules, time to communicate can slowly drift off our radar and out of our lives. And so, let me encourage you to join me in a simple but profound endeavor…majoring on communication.

Though exceptions are expected, a day without intentionally talking with Gina is a day where our marriage has fallen short somewhere. It need not be major conversation or 2-3 hour long discussions. They’ll happen from time to time, but if they’re the norm nothing else will be getting done, which is a whole other problem.

Just 5 minutes of communication here or 15 minutes could make all the difference. Consider trying one of these ideas:

When you first see each at the end of the work day, do whatever is necessary to talk for 10 minutes or so to update each other on your days. Catch up on the happenings of the family, the office, phone calls, etc. This will help you complete each day while on the same page instead of spending the rest of the night figuring the page out.

Pick a night, other than date night, to talk about official household business. Make it routine…Wednesday nights, for instance. However, really protect date night. Don’t allow that night to be the night you discuss which plumber you’ll go with or even the color you’ll paint the Laundry Room. Those things need to be discussed, but not on your date. That’s what this Communication night is for.

Keep a list of topics you need to discuss. As you go through your day and you say to yourself, “We ought to talk about that as a couple,” jot it down. Put it in your PDA, your phone, text each other, email each other or use a simple pen and paper. This will help avoid the last minute, “Oh, I forgot to tell you…” as the dinner guests are driving up the driveway.

Google Calendar can be a good friend for maintaining family calendars. However, no invention, tool, or friend can replace good communication. Your spouse is the most important person in your life…majoring on communication will help it stay that way.

God’s Eyes for Your Spouse

By Rob Flood

“I thank my God every time I remember you.” (Philippians 1:3)

When you look at your spouse, what do you see? I don’t mean hair or eye color, height or weight. I mean, when you consider your spouse, do you see failures and shortcomings? Or do you see successes and strengths? Being human, your spouse undoubtedly has both failures and successes on his or her report card. There are also strengths and shortcomings. But I’m not asking about the facts of their report card. I’m asking, “What do you see?”

In Philippians 1:3-11, we see how Paul had God’s eyes for the Philippian church. It was not that they were without fault. In fact, Paul addressed some of those issues in the letter that followed. It was that Paul remembered the Philippians for their successes rather than their failures. He saw them for their strengths. And it was their best moments that drove his affections for them.

Seeing through the eyes of God is not an ability limited to the first century or some apostolic gifting possessed only by Paul. It can be lived out in the homes of Christian couples all around the world. A husband can choose to acknowledge the failures of his wife while still remembering her according to her successes. A wife can choose to speak about her husband according to his strengths even in the face of his weaknesses.

This creates an atmosphere of grace and freedom that is beyond description. Grace like this removes the issue of acceptance from the “performance” category and transfers it to the “gospel” category: “Because of the gospel, I accept you as you are.” It allows failures to be learning opportunities and weaknesses to be windows for humility and faith. It allows successes to be achieved humbly and strengths to be leveraged for others rather than for yourself.

Sounds great, right? Who would not want this to be true of their marriage? Any one in his right mind would want such an environment of grace. So, what keeps us from it?

You’ll have to answer that question for yourself. However, there are some common obstacles. For some people, bitterness sits as the watchman of their minds. It doesn’t let them to forget each and every time they’ve been wronged. For others, self-righteousness is the culprit. They accuse to amplify the weaknesses and sins of others all the while drowning out their own shortcomings. For still others, it is just a lack of knowledge. These people are doing the best they can and don’t know of any other way.

Whatever the cause, the solution is the same. It is God’s delight to give you his vision of your spouse. If your spouse is a follower of Christ, God looks at him or her and sees Christ, even in the face of the massive amount of sin we all commit daily. Because God sees us with this kind of grace, we can see one another with the same grace. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Love as the Lord has loved you. Look at your spouse as the Lord has looked at you.

When we do so, we see our spouse for his or her successes and strengths. We don’t ignore their failures or weaknesses. We just don’t characterize them by their worst moments. We allow the grace of God to shape our vision of them so that we see them for their best moments. God wants this in and for all of us. He will help you do it and your marriage will reap the rewards.

Marriage Role Models

By Rob Flood

When I was a boy, my sister’s future husband used to hang around a lot. I was that annoying pre-teen that never really gave them a moment’s peace. He was someone I wanted to be like. I began dressing like him, liking his sports teams, using his type of humor. I interrogated him regularly about his interests, seeking to learn all I could from him. He represented something I wanted to be like…and I began to be like him in every way I could.

You may have a role model from your youth. Someone you sought to be like. In our Christian lives, there are those who represent something we want to be like. We don’t make idols out of them (the way I did with my future brother-in-law from time to time), but we do learn from them. Perhaps they excel in areas where we struggle. Perhaps they’ve experienced a season we are heading into. In any case, there are ways where we could stand to be more like them.

This is true in the area of marriage. Your church is rich with wonderful role models in marriage. Sure, they have flaws, but there is much to learn. Our duty is simple…look around. Ask yourselves these questions:

What areas of your marriage are in need of help?
In what areas of your marriage do you desire to grow?
Who has God providentially placed in your lives that you can learn from?
Are you willing to take the initiative to connect with them and draw them out concerning marriage?

Fellowship with others in your stage of life is very valuable. There is mutual encouragement and accountability in this. However, if that’s all you do…you will never benefit from the fullness of the blessing of marriage role models.

Consider taking the step to reach out to ordinary folks in your church who have extraordinary marriages. Perhaps you’ve seen something in their relationship that stands out to you. Perhaps it is something you don’t see that stands out to you. Pursue them. Ask them. Learn from them.

You don’t have to start dressing like them to benefit from all they can teach you. Keep your favorite sport team and your own sense of humor. However, don’t allow fear or imposition to stop the invitation. Role models have played a part in the Christian life since the beginning. Every Timothy has a Paul. Sometimes…he just needs to ask.

Welcome to A Moment for Marriage

By Rob Flood

What if I told you taking a moment to invest in your marriage every now and then could genuinely improve it? Would you do it? Would you take that moment for marriage every now and then?

Now, let me be honest with you. A moment every now and then will not create radical change. It will, however, create small change (sometimes very small change). But if you take enough moments for marriage, many small changes add up to big change over time.

That’s what this blog is about: helping couples, no matter what stage of joy or development they happen to be in, engage biblical wisdom and teaching for the health of their marriage. Or, to put it more succinctly, here is the thrust of this blog:

A Moment for Marriage is designed to help couples walk with Christ, no matter the state of their marriage.

It won’t happen only by reading the blog. It will happen as you engage God during and after you read. It will happen as you take the truth shared here and pray over it, allowing it to bring adjustment or conviction. It will happen as you allow the Holy Spirit to have his way in your life, in your preferences, in your habits, in your heart, as he applies truth and the power of his Word to your life.

Each blog will seek to apply a biblical passage, a truth, a quote, or just plain old wisdom to the nuts and bolts of where the rubber marriage meets the road of real life. Too tall a task to take on? Remember, small changes over time can generate big results.

Together, let’s take a moment here…and a moment there…and perhaps another moment over there. Let’s take A Moment for Marriage and see what God does in your relationship.

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I’m looking forward to many moments together with you.