A Climate Change in Marriage

We’re going through some extremely cold days and nights here on the east coast and the pattern has been pretty bizarre throughout the world. From floods in Australia to frost in Florida, this has been a very strange winter. Some feel that we may be on the verge of a global climate change.

The weather has been sort of like our family relationships. With all the strange outbreaks and abnormal temperatures, the most difficult aspect is the feeling that there’s nothing we can do about it accept wait it out and see what happens tomorrow.

Thankfully we can turn to the Word of God when we experience strange weather patterns in our marriage. Sudden and unexpected storms can hit a marriage in many forms. Financial setbacks, in-laws, parental challenges, and work schedules can provide a constant stream of thunderstorms and tornadoes, but the most devastating damage is often done by the overall climate change in our relationships.

Climate changes are the result of a sustained atmospheric change. The atmosphere in our home is affected by the atmosphere in our hearts. When it becomes cold, cynical, critical, negative and fearful inside our hearts, it becomes cold, cynical, critical, negative and fearful  in our home. After a while, it’s cold for so long that it’s not just a season of winter, but it becomes a cold climate all year long, with only brief periods of sunshine or warmth.

We think back over the past thirty years of our marriage and we are so thankful that the Lord has helped us to establish a warm and gentle climate that occasionally experiences seasons of storms and cold, instead of a cold and stormy climate that only sees sunshine for a couple days or weeks per year.

The secret to establishing a loving climate was to yield our hearts individually to God the Father; by constantly surrendering our wills to the Holy Spirit.

Chris: As a husband, I had to see my role in Carol’s life as one whom God had sent to be an extension of His healing to her, through me. 
Carol: As a wife, I had to see my role in Chris’ life as one whom God had sent to be an extension of His healing to him, through me.

Yes, God put us in one another’s life and showed us how to resist the temptation to only focus on what the other person should be doing for me. This kind of focus is what causes a cold, cynical, critical, negative and fearful marriage. God reset our mindset to serving, helping and ministering to one another.

The world attempts to overcome these marital challenges by promoting a 50-50 marriage arrangement. We don’t believe that 50-50 works in marriage. First of all, you cannot determine if your spouse has met you half way. Your spouse may feel like they are giving their all to the marriage, but you might determine their effort as being mediocre at best.

Secondly, the 50-50 arrangement makes you focus on what your spouse is NOT doing. It makes you focus on their weaknesses and faults. It makes you view the relationship as one in which you are doing most of the work.

Thirdly, we believe that marriage isn’t 50-50 because it’s actually: give whatever you have, and receive whatever your spouse has to offer. You must learn to appreciate where they are and what they have to offer without trying to determine if what they have, or what they are doing meets your personal standards. Sometimes marriage is 90-10, 100-0, 75-25, 60-40, or even 30-30 because neither of you can do enough to make things right.

Our point is that a Godly marriage is based upon what Jesus said in Matthew 5:48 “Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” When Jesus made this statement it was spoken in the context of Matthew 5: 44: “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which spitefully use you, and persecute you.” 

In that understanding He was telling His followers to love people without reservation, to love without qualification, to love unconditionally. So be 'perfect like your Father in heaven is perfect' was not talking about flawless living. He was telling us to love people the same way God loves people, which is perfectly. It’s about perfect love to imperfect people.

We’re certainly not referring to your spouse as your enemy, but the principal of love is the same. That’s why perfect love cast out fear. If you love your spouse without holding anything back, without waiting for them to earn it, and without setting up conditions in your mind that they must meet, then the Word of God promises that their fears will be driven out. You will become an extension of God's healing hand to their heart.

We discovered that a lot of our negative reactions to one another were rooted in fear, but the perfect love of God, being poured out to one another, through each of us, literally drove out our fears. It drove out the fear that he will leave me. It drove out the fear that she will find someone else. It drove out the fear of marriage failure.

There is nothing like waking up in the morning and asking the Lord, How can I minister Your love to my spouse today? We are living witnesses that this is not a fantasy. This has become our reality. Even when we got way off track and missed one another by miles in our communication, because our climate was one of warmth, love, unconditional acceptance, and total commitment to what is best for the other person, the cold days and stormy nights could not and did not last long. We were able to weather tornadoes, floods and earthquakes.

"Marriage is about mercy."

Determine, now that you want that kind of relationship, too. If whether you are married, divorced, separated, or single and not even looking, begin to change the atmosphere in your heart. Get away from being cold, cynical, critical, negative and fearful. Whatever you sustain, that atmosphere, over time, will become the CLIMATE of your HEART. The climate in your heart will change the ATMOSPHERE of your HOME. If you sustain that atmosphere in your home, it will become the CLIMATE of your HOME.

Resist the negative thoughts and past experiences that are telling you that this is just a bunch of fairy tale rhetoric. The resistance goes something like this, “That may have worked for Chris and Carol and a few other people, but I live in the urban world, in the real world. There are no men or women like that here.” So we’re declaring to you, that’s the lie from satan.

In John 10:10 Jesus declared, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” This is abundant life for marriage in the urban community.

By no means are we trying to promote ourselves and boast about our relationship. We feel like the couples that you may see on one of those TV infomercials, who are trying to convince you to try some special product that worked for them.

Well, our product is the Word of God, brought to you by the Spirit of God, all under the orchestration and executive plan of Father God. Just try it! It will change the climate of your marriage, too!