Challenge #73

Here's a question that we should all ask ourselves: how important is my marriage?How important is your marriage to you? How important is it to your spouse? To your children (if you have any)? To your extended family and friends? What would happen to you and those around  you if your marriage ended today? What would life be like for you and your spouse to be seperate? If you are like most people, you probably do not like the answers that come to mind when you ask yourself these questions. Most of us would not want to experience or inflict the hurt that comes with divorce on any of those in our lives that we care about. That is why our marriages are so fundamentally important. Most of the strongest relationships formed stem from the relationship created when two people marry: husband/wife, parent/child, in-laws/extended family, even many of our friends. If you consider your marriage to be much like the nucleus of your other earthly relationships, it is so much easier to put its importance into perspective.

This week, I've been thinking quite a bit about pruning. That is really a big part of what we challenge ourselves to do here daily: take away the bad to add the good. Eliminate unnloving, careless, destructive, or selfish behavior and replace with loving, caring, encouraging, selfless behavior. So how is that going for you? What kind of progress have you made? Because we all must have the proper understanding of the importance of our marriages and our roles within them in addition to the ability to regulate our own actions in a way that will strengthen the marriage. We must know our part and do it faithfully in spite of what our spouse may or may not be doing.

For today's challenge, identify an area in which you should grow. For example: I need to grow in grace: I need to stop expecting my spouse to do everything that I want them to do perfectly and be more understanding of their short-comings. Or: I need to grow in love. I need to be more attentive to the needs of my spouse and show them unconditional love through word and deed. We could make examples all day: patience, kindness, selflessness, etc. You know in which areas you could stand to experience some growth. Pray about it then act upon it.