Marriage Mondays

MARRIAGE is WORK

with Pastor Emmanuel Gachanja

Marriage takes work and that is the story that romantic happily ever after fairy tales fail to tell us. We all have a vision of what we desire in and for our marriages.  To actualise these visions, we have to put in the work. There are things that we need to put into our marriages, and there are those that we need to take out.

One of the things we need to put in is love. Love is often reduced to a warm fuzzy feeling. However, as described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV), love is a multitude of attributes that we must consider when working on our marriages. The first two attributes, patience and kindness, serve as the foundational elements of love.

Patience

Patience, involves taking preventive measures that help us live in peace and harmony with our spouses. It requires pruning the behaviours and attitudes that negatively impact our marriages.  For instance, when dealing with unmet expectations, we have to make a deliberate decision to understand that everybody is a work in progress. No one becomes the person God designed them to be overnight, this is a process that takes time and as such requires patience. For that reason we must choose to be patient with our spouses.

Kindness

The second element is kindness. Where patience is preventive, kindness is proactive. It is love in action. Simply put, kindness involves the warm, sweet and gentle things that spouses do for each other. These small acts of kindness do to your marriage what a fertiliser does to a garden.

When we read further into the scripture given above, we see that love doesn’t envy, it doesn’t boast and is not proud. These then, are attitudes and behaviours that we have to cut out of our marriages. Many times people think that the grass is greener on the other side. However, that grass is only greener if you don’t water your side. The state of your marriage is largely based on the amount of work that you put into it.

Choose patience and kindness and remove self-seeking behaviours. Marriage involves constantly thinking about your partner and doing whatever it takes to make them prosper and satisfied. You may have frustrations and grievances towards your spouse but agree, nonetheless, to adopt the right attitude about your spouse. This will change the way you treat, handle and feel your spouse. Continue, therefore, to make the necessary changes in your marriage and work on yourself. When you do, your spouse will begin to respond.

Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFNCC_Cmae0 for the full episode.