What is the most important relationship you have right now in your life? Your answer to that question will depend on many things. Do you have children? A spouse? How much of a priority are you putting on your relationship with God?

As Christians, we know that the order of importance in regard to those three should be God, your spouse, then children. That would make your spouse the most important human relationship you have. Given that relationship’s importance, it’s amazing how little time we spend trying to nurture and take that relationship to the next level, and how often we are content to just remain.

Thinking on importance and priority, one of the most useful things I’ve taken away from our TRANSFORMED campaign is the idea of setting goals and working toward them. It seems like a simple thing, but sometimes life just gets in the way and the general goal of “communicating better with my spouse” or “getting into better shape,” gets forgotten. Setting and pursuing goals helps us to maintain focus and direction, and ultimately it helps us to grow and change in positive ways. Regardless of what area of transformation you choose to pursue in the next 90 days, I want to challenge you to begin thinking about your marriage and picking one way in which you can improve it over the next three months. I’ll provide a couple of examples of some simple, yet impactful ways to do this, and you can of course come up with your own.

Lift each other up.

Focus on saying positive things to your spouse. Ephesians 4:29 tells us Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. There’s a number out there that says you should have five positive interactions with your spouse for every one negative interaction. Couples who tend to communicate better and who report happier marriages are around that 5 to 1 ratio or better. Couples who report unhappy marriages often are not near that ratio, or maybe it’s even reversed! It is so hard to be close to someone and to desire to spend more time with someone if there is negativity present in your interactions with them. Work on biting your tongue or taking a “time-out” and revisiting the subject when cooler heads can prevail, as opposed to forcing a conversation about something when either you or your spouse are angry and are likely to say things you’ll regret. Most of the time, the conversation will not be an emergency and can be revisited another time.

Get to know your spouse.

You might think you know your husband or wife, but chances are you don’t know them as well as you think. When you started dating, you probably used to talk for hours, asking them what their favorite movie was, or about their plans for the future, their favorite book, etc. Chances are, some of those answers have changed over time, just as we all change with time. The person you married twenty years ago isn’t the same person you’re married to today. Take some time to get to know each other’s worlds and find out each other’s opinions on matters big and small. Ask some of the same silly questions you did when you first started dating and see where the conversation leads. Getting to know each other’s world leads to a deeper appreciation of each other and strengthens the marriage bond.

These are just a few ways you can begin to make some progress and invest in your marriage. If you’re interested in bettering your marriage in a bigger way, I want to invite you to take part in a 6-week class called “The Art of Marriage” with me on Sunday mornings at 9:20am starting September 11. In this class, we will focus on what God says about marriage and some things that we can be doing to actively make our marriages better, as it does require an active, ongoing effort. If you are unable to join me, I hope you will at least consider sitting down with your spouse and work on coming up with at least one goal to work on over the next 90 days and watch how God blesses your marriage!

In Christ,

Jarvis

If you would like to join us for Art of Marriage on Sunday mornings, let me know of your interest by contacting me at jarvis @spldecatur.org or 217-423-6955.