Christian married couples, like everyone else in the world, can have their ups and downs. The pressures at work, home and family can mount a pile so high you barely see your spouse on the other side. God created marriage and He longs for you to have a healthy, thriving marriage that produces much fruit.
With that in mind, Charisma magazine sat down with marriage coaches Stephen and Jenny Weaver to hear some tips on keeping a marriage fun, fresh and filled with God.
“For us there is no better way than to be living for Jesus,” Stephen says.
Getting in an everyday rut is common. You wake up, fulfill your daily to-do list and the next thing you know your alarm clock is blaring again the next morning.
“A lot of married couples, they go to work, they come home, they watch TV. They don’t really do a lot besides that. It’s a cycle you get into. There is so much more in life than just coming home and watching TV,” Stephen says.
Stephen and Jenny discuss four major pillars you can filter your marriage through to see what areas you may be lacking in.
- Are you joining together to see God’s kingdom advanced on the earth? “God has taught us all to go into the world and preach to everybody. Spread the gospel to the four corners. So, that’s what we want to do,” Stephen says.
- Let the Word of God wash over your marriage. “We let the word work for our marriage. It’s good to see the captives set free but if we aren’t good here, then none of that really means anything. If we are broken, then we go out and try and minister wholeness to other people. It doesn’t make sense,” Jenny says.
- Don’t compete. Support one another in your callings and allow time to build each other up in your current assignments. “We are content in our assignments and we affirm each other in that. There was a time we did not have this. There was a time where all I did was say ‘Stephen you need to do this, Stephen you need to come to church, I need you to step it up.’ It made him go run the other way,” she says.
- Start dating again. Switch who has control over every other date night. The husband can chose what he wants to do together one week and the wife can chose her activity the next. “Start dating again. Start flirting again. Add fire back to the marriage, that’s how God intended it. People shy away from that in the church, they don’t want to talk about that. It’s needed to have a healthy marriage,” Jenny says.
Whether you are in ministry or work in the marketplace you are a disciple of Jesus Christ and a representation of Him to the world. “When God says I’ve come to make you whole, we look at that and go ‘that’s our marriage. Our marriage needs to be whole.’ We affirm each other and confess to one another. We don’t compete in ministry,” Jenny says.
First Peter 4:8 says, “Above all things, have unfailing love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.”
The Weaver’s teach people to allow the Holy Spirit to move and soften your spouses heart in whatever area is needed. “I’m not the Holy Spirit. I’m his helpmate, I’m his wife, I’m his friend and I had to get into that place. Letting the Lord do it in his life and He does that for me,” Jenny says.
The next time feelings of frustration arise in a conversation fight for peace. The goal isn’t to be the one who is right, the goal is to fight for your marriage to be whole. “I’ve learned it’s better to have peace in your marriage. There is nothing like peace. We used to argue multiple times a day. Everything was an argument. Now it’s few and far between. Even in that, it’s okay to have a disagreement,” she says.
Tune in to the rest of the interview with the Weaver’s here.
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Shelby Bowen is an assistant editor for Charisma Media.
