Author: gotmarriage

Don’t Get Distracted

Good Morning Friends,

We hope all had a magnificent Independence Day, enjoying good company and stayed safe.

We also want to take a moment to thank ALL who have given of themselves that we all may enjoy the freedoms we have today. Also honor to those who fight and have fought to restore and or maintain our Christian heritage in this country.

The enemy, would have us be distracted. Anger, bitterness and apathy makes it easier that as the thief, to kill, steal, destroy and divide to conquer families, communities and country. After all, by the Spirit, the family is where we should learn and practice love, joy, peace, patience and perseverance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I was listening to a song on the radio this morning, “Slow Fade” by Casting Crowns. The truth in the words are like a knife to those who dare to listen. “Be careful little eyes what you see, be careful little ears what you hear, be careful little feet where you go”… How do we protect our children, ourselves and our communities and country from the evil that deceives us and slowly steals our innocence, peace and joy?

Too often our families suffer with generations of dysfunction to the point we don’t know what we don’t know. When will we put our foot down and scream out “WE MUST STOP THIS INSANITY”, and call out to God? We must make a conscience decision to stop the dysfunction and remove ourselves if others insist on continuing. The lies and deceptions of the enemy have us convinced that life will cease if we stand up for right. “It might hurt someone’s feelings” or “we don’t have any other place to go” and so forth.

I will speak for myself, Juliah, I grew up a people pleaser. It would paralyze me to think that I hurt someone’s feelings and that they would not like me anymore. Even way into my adulthood, I was more worried about what people thought about me or even more my husband, than what God thought of us. I thought I was peacekeeping, but it was and is pathologic passivity. I still occasionally experience the terror of what someone else will think… It takes faith, that God has our back, prayer that we acknowledge our weaknesses and need God, and practice taking action to get beyond ourselves.

Now don’t get me wrong, doing or saying something with the intention of offending or injuring is wrong. What are your motivations for the things you think or do? Faith or fear, love or bitterness, selflessness or selfishness or, God forbid, revenge? Something we need to evaluate constantly.

1 Corinthians 13:3 “If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (NIV)

All things are to be truth in love. It is ultimately up to the other person to decide to be offended or not. We cannot control what others think… We always do our part in love with right motivation and God will honor it. Starting with our families and working our way out… Our families deserve our best…

Our Spouse is a Precious Gift from God…

Each Day is a New Day… 

“We have the opportunity to learn from yesterday and renew our minds, actions and words today that we may look forward to tomorrow.” Juliah Wolfe

A definition of precious, according to dictionary.com, is as follows “of high price or great value”.

How do you take care of a precious gift from the best father ever? Do you honor it, care for it, keeping it in a special place?

Or do you set aside and forget about it? Maybe disrespect or speak harshly to it? You could be taking a chance of losing it.

Let me tell you a short story.

Many years ago when my youngest son was about 14. He built, with his own hands, a small Knick knack shelf, out of scrap wood and nails from the garage. He decorated with paper and labelled the shelves, one with Mom and one for Dad. With an ink pen, he also wrote on it, “You two will always be loved.” Now in anyone else’s eyes it might not be beautiful, scrap wood and paper. But being very special to us. I put that shelf in a special place, out where everyone could see it. Over the years, it worked its way to the laundry room window sill. This place was not particularly special. Eventually, it was hidden. Mind you this was years later. One day, I thought about that shelf, but did not know where it went. I scoured the house. After days of searching, I found it, behind the water heater in the laundry room, covered in dust bunnies and spiderwebs.

God showed me how something so special to me could get lost over time, unintentionally, but lost just the same. He related it to marriage and how we could lose something so precious to us, something that God had given to us because we did not take care of it, or had let it become devalued in our heart. Your spouse may not be beautiful to someone else but is still a precious gift to you. Given to you by God, to care for, to work and grow with, till death do you part.

In John 14:16-21, Jesus was speaking to His disciples, to comfort them before his crucifixion.  “…I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of truth….” continuing on in verse 19 “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” (NIV)

If you are in Christ and Christ is in you and Christ is in your spouse, what you do to your spouse, you are doing to Christ….

I don’t like to think that when I speak harshly to my husband, ultimately I am speaking harshly to God. God gently corrects me by asking “just who are you rebelling against now?” When I pay attention and listen, the Holy Spirit redirects my thoughts, words and actions. I don’t know about you… I find that arguing with God, trying to justify myself, is not very productive.

Sometimes it is easy, in our anger or bitterness or just plain apathy, to forget that our spouse is a precious gift from God. As we stay close to God, we will be able to take note of our Father gently reminding us to care for our spouse and love them unconditionally, as God has first loved us.

Today is a new day!!

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Glory to God! A new step on our path that God has set before us. This venue is new for us but we are confident that we will get the hang of blogging. Be sure to review a brief synopsis “About Us”.

Our desire and purpose is to encourage, cultivate and be an instrument for God to build and strengthen marriages and families, communities and country. Some posts will be instructional, some correctional and all are intended to be encouraging. Life happens and we are all human beings. We “all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23,24 NIV) and with that being said, we are all in or should be in process of improvement.

As we continue to grow and learn we want to share it with you that maybe you will benefit as well. We always encourage you to look up and study God’s Word (the bible), we will be including passages as we go. So smile, buckle your armor and be ready for the journey.