Oh Be Careful Little Eyes….

Oh be careful little eyes what you see…. A line from a familiar Sunday School song. It’s something that must be applied in marriage. Both men and women can be caught letting their eyes wander. I’m not going to address pornography here except to say that it has no place in Christian marriage. If you are having struggles with this, make sure you get into a regular time with God, and get focused on what He has for you. There are ministries that you can look into to get a good idea of the full impact and consequences of it. You can be encouraged and restored. One example is xxxchurch.com.


I think people underestimate how much work it takes to make a marriage work. People need to work at it and need to develop some skills to move forward. Some people grew up around good role models. Some people have picked up good habits along the way. A marriage, like anything worth keeping, takes maintenance. It’s pretty easy when you first start out. It’s just the two of you. Throw kids into the mix and it can be about managing the house more than being husband and wife. Somewhere you both still have those romantic feelings for each other, but once you’re ready to snuggle for a minute there are two kids and a dog trying to snuggle too. It is so true what my pastor says, when you are going to have a fight with your spouse the kids disappear and the dog hides under the table. When there are hugs going around, everyone in the house wants to be in the middle of it.


Sometimes in marriage the relationship gets dry. This is the time to be most cautious. I have heard of marriages that faltered or broke down because there was a dryness in the relationship. If one spouse suddenly gets attention elsewhere…. Uh-oh!


Men and women, be careful how you treat your friends of the opposite sex… treat them in absolute purity… no grey area. We may not know of difficulty in a relationship. Don’t become the stumbling block.


Some say that when things are not like they were at the beginning, that it is time to move on. WRONG! That is time to work on the relationship. Romance is not something that is just “there”. It must be stirred up from time to time.


It can be discouraging to think of how easily a marriage can break. Both people have to learn how to be married. That takes time. When you are in a relationship that you are committing to for the rest of your life, then that should be plenty of time to learn it right? Seriously though, it does take time. It takes work. If you have found that person that loves God more than they love you, and you strive to love God more than you love your spouse, then as you choose to love your spouse, your relationship will get stronger.


I guess I could summarize marriage as loving God, and being selfless in loving your spouse. It is the battle between doing what you want versus doing what your spouse needs. Even in the tough, dry times, choose to love your spouse, pray for them, and do those things that you know will please and encourage them.


Where you focus, where your eyes are, and what they see will be where you go. Any good driver will tell you that you should look where you want to go. If your heart wants to go after God, then choose to look to him and the other things will fall into place.


Marriage is worth the effort. It represents God’s relationship with the church, and is seen through the relationship with a husband and wife. Marriage is one of the best tools for refining you. Live with someone that knows you so intimately, and learn to do the right thing at all times…. That takes refining. You’ll fail lots, and you’ll succeed lots. Hopefully as you work on your relationship with God, your character changes and you become more like the character of Jesus.


Now what about if a wife or a husband decides that they don’t want to be a Christian any more even though they started out the marriage that way? Or what if one decides they are done with the marriage? I have seen this happen a few times and it leaves someone either living in a difficult situation because of a difference in values and convictions. Or they can be devastated if someone leaves the marriage go for someone else. Obviously they missed the “’til death do us part” portion of their vows.


People seem to want the big romantic, fun party of a wedding, but they often don’t understand what it is that they are getting into. How can people not talk about things like kids, and job goals and all that before they choose to get married? What about disease? Sometimes and unexpected illness can be a huge shift in life. I know it might seem quite petty, but what if all of a sudden an injury happened or a disease happened that made sex impossible? Is that grounds to end the marriage? No. In sickness and in health.


Marriage must be about focus on God and focus on loving your spouse selflessly. As soon as you let your eye wander… it’s time to refocus…. It’s time to maybe even get counseling. Marriage is so valuable. Keep focused on making it stronger.

Marriage and Communication...

Communication is a key to marriage. It is something that can be strong with a lot of nurturing, or can breakdown with very little effort at all. Like anything else that is worth doing, it takes effort and practice.


This is one of the ways that God’s design for the differences between men and women shows itself. Men tend to think in a way that wants to solve the problem. Women tend to think and speak in a way that comes from their emotions. Men seem to be conditioned by our culture to feel happy or angry… nothing else. Women feel better just to talk something out… not necessarily solve the problem.

Someone could say the same thing to a man and then to a woman. To the man it might not be that big of a deal and he shrugs it off, like a small stone on a rhinoceros. Say the same thing to a woman and it can be like the same small rock, but on the back of a butterfly. It could crush her.

My purpose is not to try to make one way of thinking better or worse than the other. I am just noting a difference. Of course all people have different things that have acted on them and influence how they think and reason and feel. That being said, communication is so much more about listening than it is about speaking. Some have quipped that we have two ears and one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we speak.

Especially in marriage, the time we spend with our spouse should be about active listening. If you think that you might not have understood something, ask them questions to clarify. Sometimes if a topic is delicate, lead in with something that gives your spouse a minute to brace themselves, like, “I have something important to talk to you about.”

Be careful about the words that you choose. Most people are sensitive to your words. People that are more emotional (men or women) could react to words spoken badly. It takes effort to learn to respond to what is being said rather than react. Women, if your man says something to you that could be interpreted two ways and one of them is mean or insensitive… we meant the other one.

Ultimately, all of this comes down to people learning to speak and listen in love. Yelling things in anger or saying things with intent to hurt are not things that should be in Christian marriage. We all choose what to say, and sometimes we say something that we know we shouldn’t have. Surrender. Submit to each other in love and make things right. Forgive. Sometimes fights don’t resolve themselves because no one wants to humble themselves and say that they are sorry.

Communication is an art that is worth pursuit.

Thoughts?