I wrote about stressful darts the other day. Darts that I threw towards my husband and children amidst my stressful moment. I was convicted. But, nothing held a candle to the conviction I had after attending our "Love & Respect" class that following Friday evening at our church.
We've been reading through a book called "Love & Respect" by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and as difficult as it has been on my own internal, selfish pride & right to have it my way, it has been an incredible book. I would highly recommend it to any of you, no matter how long or short of time you've been married.
That evening at class Dr. Eggerichs spoke about the exact "lashing out" that I had done the previous week. He talked about how our spouse isn't necessarily always the cause of why we are lashing out, but God uses our spouse in our lives to reveal what's on the inside. It was an "ah-ha" moment for me. That was exactly what happened & honestly it wasn't pretty. Then he said this following quote...
"In the ultimate sense, your marriage has nothing to do with your spouse. It has everything to do with your relationship to Jesus Christ."
I've always known that my marriage needs to be on the Solid Rock and foundation of Jesus Christ, but the way he worded it really grabbed my heart. You see, my relationship with Jesus Christ has been neglected a bit and I realized there in was the problem. I was trying to "figure things out" myself and discovered that as important as I thought working on my reaction was to things or how my husband was approaching things, it's all about my personal relationship with Jesus Christ...period.
My personal relationship with Jesus.....From that flows streams of Living Water. When you're in His Word and in prayer your heart turns to His ways and obedience that He desires and you remember that the Word and our relationship with Christ is our manual for life.
If I'm not taking care of the most important love relationship that I have with my Lord and Savior...the One in Whom I've given ultimately my heart to, then I will never succeed in my marriage.
All of Him...less of Me...Life. "He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." It's all through Christ and that love relationship with Him and from that will flow amazing desire to love your spouse and walk this journey with them in the exact way that He designed for it to be.
6 comments:
Thank you for this post, Earen. My time with Christ has also been less than what I've needed and wanted and I've noticed myself being shorter with just about everyone. I knew God was caling me back to Him, to go deeper than I had been, and this post is a great reminder to not give up on that.
Thank you for this post. I needed to hear it. So often, when my hubby and I get into an arguement I think "yes, I need to work on this, but he needs to work on this this and this." I realize my life needs to be more focused on Christ, but I'm always afraid to let things go too far (as if I would be the only one working on the relationship, and get walked on). You reminded me that I need to focus on that relationship with Christ first.
Can I just say that this is a timely word for me today? Thank you - keep sharing what you are learning - I need to be in that class.
I think thats the best thing I've read all day. Gonna read again and again and again. May send this to others! Very good, very good.
May Christ be the pulse of our heart!
We read that book about two years ago in our Sunday School class. It was definitely an eye opening way to look at relationships.
Thank you for your words. It was a great reminder!
God's been working on me big time in this department lately. I've been addressing pride in my relationship with my husband and even in my relationship with God.
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