5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage: LESSON 5

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LESSON 5:  Adore Your Wife Liberally   
God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 

Adore her, even when you don’t feel like it.

I believe one of the most astonishing and frightening aspects of marriage in the first years is the apparent departure of the affections we once felt so passionately when we first fell in love. Nevertheless, I see this as the first stage of learning to truly love. We need to acknowledge that love is as much a choice as it is an emotion. In fact, in the first years of marriage, it is more often a choice than it is an emotion. 

Emotions are easy. They don’t cost us anything. Love, on the other hand, is not easy. Love demands sacrifice. Love requires effort. That which costs us little often becomes of little consequence in our lives. Nothing of any value comes free or easy. We instinctively grow to value those things in which we are invested. If I invest my time, energy and money into making my wife feel like she is lovely, adorable, desirable, and the delight of my life, then my attitude will conform to my actions and will eventually characterize my true disposition toward her. I have experienced this to be true in my own life.

God demonstrated this by pouring out his undying love on my undeserving heart, even when I was in my most unlovely state. Devoted love is always demonstrated and sustained through action, regardless of whether or not glamorous feelings are present. 

The early years of a marriage can be extremely difficult. They have been for me. But I have discovered that the more I focus on God’s grace toward me in the midst of my own sin, the more eager I am to be a conduit of that same grace toward my wife despite our conflict. 

My wife and I have both seen how marriage reveals the worst in each other; but this, in turn, reveals the best of God’s grace. And after these first five years we can both attest to the truth that Love does indeed cover a multitude of sins.

5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage: LESSON 4

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LESSON 4: Practice Vulnerability—Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble… Philippians 2:3a (NLT)

We go through our lives learning how to mask weakness, failure and inadequacies in ourselves. It’s ironic that marriage is designed by God in part to reveal precisely those same areas we have spent our lives trying to hide. If you carefully consider what lies at the heart of most marketing ploys you will discover an accusing message that says, “You are inadequate. You are insignificant. You are incompetent. But if you consume what we offer then you all that will change” (Interestingly, this is also what lies at the heart of the pornographic deception). 

We are bombarded with these messages daily. The result is that subconsciously we begin to believe that we will only be loved, accepted and valued as long as we are seen to be adequate and in control. We then forward the favor to our wives, measuring her against the same impossible standard with which we measure ourselves. This erodes our trust in each other and the very foundation upon which a marriage is built—unconditional love and acceptance in spite of our flaws. 

 

The way to combat this seductive message is through vulnerability—opening ourselves up to objective criticism from our wives. The following are some practical questions we need to ask our wives on a regular basis: 

     “What are some things I’ve done this week that irritated you or others around me?"

     "How have you seen weaknesses or shortcomings demonstrated in my life this week?"

     "Will you forgive me?"

     "What are some steps I can do to improve?"

     "Will you stand by me, help me and try to be patient with me as I seek to improve?"

     "Will you pray with me right now for God’s grace to do better?”

5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage: LESSON 3

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LESSON 3:  Forgive Freely—Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:12 (ESV)

The more clearly we see our own sin, the more clearly we see the magnitude of God’s tender mercy toward us in Christ. This stunning realization awakens in us the same merciful disposition toward our wives that God reveals toward us.

We see this demonstrated in Jesus’ treatment of the prostitute who bowed at his feet, weeping on them with adoration and love as she poured costly perfume on them. She then used her hair and tear-mingled perfume to wash the dust off his feet. The hypocritical Pharisee observing this thought to himself, “If only he knew who was touching his feet...” Jesus, perceiving his hypocrisy, asked him a question: “Two people owed money to a lender. One owed 500 pieces of silver, the other 50 pieces. Neither could pay, so the lender kindly cancelled both debts. Which one would be more grateful?” The answer was obvious, even to the hypocrite.

I have come to realize that my ability to forgive my wife is like a barometer that reveals my awareness of my own sin and God’s grace toward me. That’s why seeing my own sin is so important. The more I recognize that my personal sin is what nailed the innocent Nazarene to the cross—it was I who mocked him and reviled him, and spit on him—and then behold his response which said, “Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he does,” how can I do anything less than forgive my wife for her offenses toward me?

5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage: LESSON 2

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LESSON 2:  See My Own Sin Clearly—Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matthew 7:3 (ESV)

I need to see my own sin, flaws and failures more quickly and more clearly than those of my wife. Every day pride seduces me to come down from the watchtower of my heart. “You’re not so bad. Your sin is far off. You haven’t done that in a while. You’re all good!” But it’s a lie. The truth is that sin lurks in and around every corner of my heart, and is woven into the fabric of everything I do. I must diligently practice a posture of oversight in every area of my life. 

Every time my wife annoys, attacks, or offends me, I need to immediately ask myself:

     “How have I contributed to this?"

     "What have I done recently that has similarly offended her?"

     "Why am I irritated?" 

     "How have I been failing her or how have I allowed her to arrive at a place where she is tempted to attack me?” 

Many times I may actually be innocent. But developing this discipline of “soul over-watch” has taught me that I’m far less innocent, far more often, than I think I am. I am able to see my own offenses and how they are often part of what provokes my wife to sin.

5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage: LESSON 1

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LESSON 1: Repent Often—For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret… 2 Corinthians 7:10a (ESV)

Repentance is a beautiful, supernatural grace that the Spirit causes in our hearts. It results from seeing the guilt of my sin through God’s eyes and leads me joyfully to surrender to the authority of the one who saves me from that guilt—Jesus. The more I repent, the more I see Jesus and the glory of the grace of his sacrifice in my life. I am transformed by this power and am conformed into his image.

As I repent, my stubborn, offensive will begins to shrink. It is replaced by the personality of Jesus, as the presence of His Spirit is released in me and touches my wife’s heart. As this transpires, two marvelous benefits occur:

(1) Jesus’ unconditional love—not my wife or the condition of our marriage—defines my life. I am liberated from depending on her for joy and validation. Therefore, my joy in life does not fluctuate based on the circumstances of my marriage, but remains steadfastly rooted in God’s unchanging love poured out in Christ. I am empowered to love my wife regardless of whether or not she treats me as I want to be treated.

(2) My wife is exposed to the transforming power of Jesus’ grace in me, and most often her heart melts under the radiance of that grace. That is the power of the Gospel, and it is all released through repentance.

5 Crucial Lessons from My First 5 Years of Marriage-INTRO

“I’m sick of your nagging!” I yelled, slapping my hand down on the table. “It was an accidental slurp for goodness’ sake!”

The truth was that as much as I was working on curtailing my soup and cereal slurps at the table, the soup was indeed extremely hot. It truly was only a slurp-slip up, and not done intentionally. The problem was that my unconscionable table manners and rudeness in our first year of marriage was something she came to expect. I failed to understand how painful the underlying issues were that caused her to be so easily irritated and I often exploited it to just that end—simply because I could, and because I have a wicked sin nature that loves a romp in the slop. I was innocent on this occasion, however, and she would pay for her unjustified nagging.

After a string of expletives I picked up my soup and stomped through the kitchen out the back door, slamming it behind me as I exited. I took a few super-slurps, hoping she could hear me inside. But I couldn’t enjoy it. I set the bowl down and just dropped my head in exasperation and shame. Lifting my head, I noticed the dilapidated wooden privacy fence in my back yard. “God,” I asked, “why do we always fail so bad? Why does this marriage feel so much like that broken-down fence?”

I’ve talked to and counseled with a lot of men in the five years since that slurp. Apparently, incidents like that aren’t so uncommon in the early years of marriage. The first year, especially, is often the most difficult for many couples. The sweetness of romance can quickly disappear, replaced with the reality of one another’s flaws. And silently, as desperation sinks in, each person quietly wonders, “Is this really forever?”

As difficult as our first year of marriage was, however, both my wife and I can gratefully testify that as we celebrate our fifth year of marriage we have fallen more deeply in love and affection for each other than we ever thought possible. We are able to celebrate the joy that God has woven into our lives, and see his grace in using those painful conflicts as a way of laying down for us the foundation we desperately need in order for our marriage to endure.

In anticipation of my five-year anniversary, I recently sat down and reflected on some of the most important principles I learned as a husband trying to make sense of my first year of marriage.Hopefully, those 5 lessons in the following posts will be meaningful for you, too.