41 Things Married People Ought to Know (Part 1 of 4)

I plan to post 41 things which would be good for married people to know.  All of these are either the result of what I have learned in my own marriage or through watching many, many people over the years in their marriages.  These are listed randomly not in any order of importance.  Perhaps a few of these will be helpful to you or at least create some thought. 

These will appear in four different posts.

1.  Married people are called to move away from self-centeredness and toward self-lessness.  The "self" has a way of getting in the way of a good married.

2.  Jesus can be disruptive to a marriage and family.  Why?  One reason for this is because he challenges both husband and wife to pursue something larger than their individual happiness.  (Like the kingdom of God).  Sometimes, a wife or husband will desire to pursue this larger vision while the other person is digging in his heels.

3.  Married people can become very lazy with one another.  As a result, husband and wife no longer cherish one another.  Tenderness slips away…

4.  Every marriage has some kind of atmosphere.  Some marriages are marked by laughter and a sense of enjoying life.  Other marriages are marked by a deadly, negative poison.  This couple might spend large amounts of time griping or focusing on the negative in one another.  That creates a heavy, cloudy, joyless atmosphere.

5.  Something is very wrong when a married couple claims a commitment to Jesus and belongs to a church, and yet they have never allowed Jesus to even get near their marriage.  Consequently, these people may be perceived as "spiritual" at church but in fact they are quite ungodly in the way they treat one another.

6.  Resentment and deeply held grudges are like a cancer.  This relational cancer has a way of eating away at the very fiber of a marriage. 

7.  The bottom line in marriage is not personal happiness.  The bottom line is holiness.  (Gary Thomas in Sacred Marriage ) Christ followers allow God to use their marriage to help them become more like Jesus.

8.  Marriage needs to be based on grace, not performance.  A performance based relationship is under great pressure.  People feel that they must perform at a certain level or they are not loved.  As a result, many go through life feeling like they never measure up in the eyes of their mates.

9.  Married people need to come to grips with the reality of the sin they are inflicting on one another.  Consider these: harshness, rudeness, impatience, self-centeredness, pride, willfully inflicting pain, etc.

10. How utterly foolish for husbands or wives to run down their mates just to get a cheap laugh from co-workers.  What about the second most important commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself"? Is this the way mature men and women treat one another?