GPS to a Joyful Marriage

So you would like to find some hope for your marriage even when you see no possible solutions.  Hang in there – there is always hope. Do you know that our thoughts are the beginning of our destiny, the birth or death of our hope?  That’s where it all starts. “Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.”   - Author unknown The bible tells us to “ take your thoughts captive. ”   Contrary to what the world would have us think, we can have control of our thoughts.  Divorce all starts in someone’s mind, in their thinking.  It’s what you do with those thoughts that determine what will happen to your marriage.  If you take the negative thoughts and refuse to act on them, refuse to allow them to dominate your thinking, you can change the destructive path your marriage might be heading. Philippians 4:8 says, 

Our thoughts are the center of our being. They ultimately determine the path we will take in our lives. They determine our success in work, family, and relationships. They can also affect our emotional and physical health. Taking our thoughts captive is a difficult process we must learn in order to live a peaceful life in obedience to Christ. We only need to read the newspaper, the Internet, or turn on the television to see the effect of wrong thinking. Sometimes, wrong thinking may seem right to us. For example, maybe your family taught you to speak your mind, or they may have taught you to hold everything inside. Either way could be so engraved into your thinking that you believe it is right. It isn’t until you face a crisis that you realize there may be a better way. We humans tend to resist making change until we reach a critical pain level caused by the behavior in need of change. As my husband always says, sometimes we need to be hit over the head with a two-by-four in order t

I don’t know about you, but sometimes, my thoughts can be my own worst enemy.  They take me places I shouldn’t go.  They hold on to offense and magnify it to consuming hurt.  They mislead my desires to worldly paths that take me nowhere.  They muffle the words that God intends for me to hear. Women usually struggle more with quieting their thoughts than men do.  One thought leads to another and then another and then another.  Men seem to be able to take an undesirable thought and lock it in a room until they are ready to deal with it.  In my quiet time this past week, one of the devotionals spoke distinctly to me. July 9, 2014 – Jesus Calling” “Stop worrying long enough to hear My voice.  I speak softly to you, in the depths of your being.  Your mind shuttles back and forth, hither and yon, weaving webs of anxious confusion.  As My thoughts rise up within you, they become entangled in those sticky webs of worry.  Thus, My voice is muffled, and you hear only white noise.

This marriage thing should be very simple.  In a healthy marriage, each spouse puts the other’s needs ahead of their own.  If both partners do this, there will be nothing but harmony and peace in the marriage.  Unfortunately we have that human element that gets in the way – selfishness.  We have a flesh that carries its own agenda. We live in a world that encourages feeding our fleshly desires, and our society seems to be growing more selfish than ever.  Is it any wonder that there is so much divorce?  You can’t have a healthy relationship with any human being when you are so wound up in yourself, much less an intimate marriage with someone where you are supposedly joined as one.  That ‘oneness’ is basically impossible when selfish agendas get in the way. Spiritually, the husband should take the lead or start the cycle of fulfilling their spouse’s needs.  (Ephesians 5:25-29)  Most women automatically reciprocate.  Women are naturally givers where men can be takers, so when a husba