Way back in 2012, One Flesh Marriage ran a series asking marriage bloggers their best advice about marriage. Specifically, the question was:

If there was only one thing from the story of your marriage that you could share, what would it be? What lesson learned, revelation, heart change or profound moment is a testament to God’s plan for marriage?

I answered with a guest post on their blog, but I’ve talked about this lesson many times elsewhere. Today, I want to share my answer with my audience here. Specifically, here’s what turned my marriage around … and might do the same for yours.

If there was only one thing from the story of my marriage that I could share, it would be this: No matter how weird your own family is, your spouse’s family qualify as aliens! Just kidding.

The Poltergeist Years

My husband and I went through several years of rocky relationship. At times, it felt like our marriage was moving through a movie haunted house, never knowing what other monster would pop up to attack and make us battle for our existence. Perhaps I should call them The Poltergeist Years, as it seemed we were both cursed and constantly cursing each other.

Thank goodness for three things that kept us going: our commitment, our children, and our sex life. We wanted to have a long-lasting marriage; we wanted to keep our family together for our kids; and we experienced loving tenderness in the bedroom that reminded us what the rest of our relationship could be.

Yet no matter how much we tried, we continued to fail. We communicated about our problems. We attended marriage retreats. We went to counseling. We prayed. I prayed a lot.

I couldn’t figure out why things weren’t getting better. We were an A+ on commitment and effort, but the relationship faltered over and over. We began to discuss divorce and tears flowed. I prayed more. We hung on by a thread, attended another marriage class, went to another counselor. I read a book about whether I should stay or go. He went apartment-shopping online. I prayed even more.

God did not answer that prayer. Things didn’t get better. Then.

Miracle or Quick-Fix?

The one thing I would share about what I have learned in marriage is simple: Don’t expect a miracle or a quick-fix to solve your problems; rather, the answer is to live daily as God commands.

Things got better when I stopped looking to experts for the formula to make it all come together and when I stopped praying to God for a Red-Sea Parting. It doesn’t work that way. Even with the Red Sea, the Israelites had to follow a cloud day-in and day-out, put one foot in front of the other mile after mile, and be obedient in many other ways before the big Ta-Da happened. Daily obedience matters most in bringing forth God’s best in your life.

How to Turn Your #Marriage Around: "Daily obedience matters most in bringing forth God’s best in your life."
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When I began to ask myself if I was treating my husband with Christ-like character, I had to answer no. I was caught up in how he had hurt my feelings over the years. I was caught up in changing external processes. I was caught up in my hopes that God would fix him, fix me, or fix the marriage in quick order.

But God didn’t answer that prayer. Or rather, He had already answered my prayer, but I wasn’t paying attention. I wanted Him in my corner, but I had yet to take God’s commands to heart and live them out day-by-day, minute-by-minute. Everything I needed to make my marriage work was in His Word.

“Love is patient, love is kind . . .” 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, . . .” Galatians 5:16-26.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Luke 6:31

“. . . in humility consider others better than yourselves . . .” Philippians 2:1-11

Theologian Soren Kierkegaard said, “When you read God’s word you must constantly be saying to yourself, ‘It is talking to me, and about me.’” I had to commit to being the kind of Christ-follower God wanted me to be.

Simple to Understand, Hard to Do.

Often we know what to do. We simply don’t do it. We find excuses for not being as loving, patient, selfless, and kind as we should. We don’t give the other person the benefit of the doubt. We focus on defending ourselves and thus offending our spouse. If God directly responded to many of our prayers for a better marriage, Jesus might simply pop into our living rooms long enough to say a “Woe unto you” for neglecting His commands.

Good marriages don’t just happen. Our Western concept that if you fall in love with the perfect someone you can live happily ever after isn’t represented in the Bible. Instead, God’s command is that once you are married (whether by falling in love, arranged marriage, or whatever), you can have a terrific marriage if you both live out a godly life.

The marriage advice that I soaked up during that time, and since, is not wasted. We have used much of what we learned as tools in our kit. Counseling highlighted specific issues to address. And prayer helped us to hang on as long as we did. Yet the foundation of what has made our marriage so much better is living out the Christian life.

When people open up the Bible to see what God has to say about marriage, they often turn to Ephesians 5 or 1 Corinthians 7. Perhaps they head to Song of Songs to read about the intimate relationship of a husband and wife. Those are good places to go! But every passage about how Christians should treat others is instruction for marriage.

Marriage is not about happy, heady feelings that swirl like a whirlpool around your insides and make you crave your mate. It’s a way for God to stretch us, to test us, to grow us into the kind of people we should be. Hey, if you can learn to be patient about your spouse’s irritating habits and practice saying kind words each and every day to the person you live with, you are growing in God. And the result of seeking a holier, healthier marriage is a happy marriage.

Pray by all means. But be sure to pray that God will help you to live out what He has already commanded us to do.

The post How to Turn Your Marriage Around appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

Feeling Exhausted

A lot of stuff has been happening around me lately that has charged my environment with an intensity it didn’t have a year ago this time. The details of events don’t matter—well, they matter to me, but not for this post. Suffice it to say: I’m exhausted by outrage culture.

Now righteous outrage can be a good thing. Societies have made real progress when good people become angry enough about an injustice to work for important change.

However, in our technology dominated world, we don’t work together so much as rage together. That is, we tend to equate saying something online with doing something. We get angry, spout our views, and congratulate ourselves for being involved or activist.

Being Part of the Club

Let’s say you get on Twitter and say something passionate and/or controversial. You might get flak, but I guarantee you someone, somewhere will applaud you for your courage. Perhaps several someones.

You may even be 100% right, and the question I still have is: How did you make a difference? Did you convince the people who didn’t agree with you before? Or just rally an audience to similarly express their outrage?

We see this with marriage websites too.

• Wanna believe feminism is to blame for you not getting sex in your marriage?
• Wanna believe all men are pigs who’ll objectify and harass anything in a skirt?
• Wanna believe a man’s lusting is the fault of how women dress?
• Wanna believe that this teaching, or that teaching, or this one is the reason why Christian marriages are struggling?

We tend to seek out exactly those resources that tell us what we already believe or want to believe. You can find a website that will cater to your outrage and make you feel part of the club.

What we often need, however, is something that challenges us to reconsider our beliefs. We might well come right back to a tried-and-true perspective, but even then at least we better understand the other side. As a result, we can better speak with people who disagree with us and perhaps persuade them to our side.

There is a limit to this, of course! We should not open ourselves to toxic theology or sinful practices. I’m talking about challenging ourselves to get outside our comfort zone, not into the danger zone.

Making the Long-Term Effort

Plenty of spouses express outrage about how their marriage is going or their lack of sexual intimacy. But outrage is easy. Long-term effort to effect real change is hard.

Outrage is easy. Long-term effort to effect real change is hard. #marriage @hotholyhumorous
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Outrage often demands burning down what exists to build something new in its stead — and sometimes that is only option. You don’t negotiate with Hitler; you topple his regime. But most of the time we’re not fighting that kind of evil, and let’s hope you don’t want to topple your whole marriage!

In many most situations, changes comes through incrementalism. Though we’d all like to have the magic bullet, it’s reasonable goals, compromise, and persistence that make the difference. Over time, baby steps turn into big strides.

Thus, you may need to put forth a lot of time and effort:

• to help your spouse feel safe enough to open up to you about their struggles
• to address the sexual baggage you each entered marriage with
• to resolve the obstacles you face
• to introduce better sexual perspectives and activities
• to demonstrate consistent and committed love

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

Becoming the Solution

Of course, putting a lot of effort into the wrong things will not yield the results you want. Which is why we should dig deep into Scripture, pray for wisdom and guidance, and check in with our spouse about what they long for in your marriage.

But we’ve got to stop telling ourselves that we’ve done something just because we talked about it. Declaring what you think to the world, to your Facebook friends, to a blog’s comment thread, even to your spouse or to your therapist isn’t enough. In fact, sometimes you’d be better off to shut up and just do something.

It’s an unpopular opinion in the marriage ministry world, but I don’t believe communication solves everything. Or even most things. Love in action solves things.

It's an unpopular opinion in the #marriage ministry world, but I don't believe communication solves everything. Or even most things. Love in action solves things. @hotholyhumorous
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Communicating with your spouse helps you know what love in action looks like for them! But it’s not enough. Your actions have to speak louder than your words.

Perhaps this is why all of my books suggest actions to put into practice what you learn. Even my conversation guide for couples, Pillow Talk, addresses what you can do and specific sexual activities you can try.

Changing the World

These lessons go beyond our own marriage. Think also about your broader life:

• Are you opposed to a marriage course your church has taught? Research alternatives, suggest a better one, and even offer to teach it or recruit facilitators.
• Are you heartbroken by the breadth and depth of abuse and mistreatment? Volunteer your time or donate to organizations that help victims.
• Are you appalled by the level of divorce in our society? Encourage your church to add premarital and marriage counseling to its resources, perhaps in concert with area churches. Recommend marriage classes and/or mentor other couples.
• Are you unhappy about the messages your church teaches about sex, or their lack of teaching on it? Suggest a marriage event and invite a speaker who can address the issue well (e.g., Juli Slattery or yours truly). Offer to facilitate a class on the subject. Start a small group study that goes through a marriage book.

Let’s save some of the outrage and channel that energy into the effort required to make a real difference in our lives and for others. We may not see results tomorrow, but in the course of a lifetime, we will reap the harvest. And gain the greatest reward.

Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.

Revelation 22:12

The post What Does It Take To Change Your Marriage…and the World? appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.