Welcome back to Intentional By Grace!

This post is written by contributing writer, Mary Beth from New Life Steward.

“Stop Focusing on Your Marriage.”

The first time I heard that statement, I was sitting in a relatively new small group in a friend’s living room. We just started a new study on marriage and during the video segment, the speaker told us to stop focusing on our marriage. Immediately I was defensive.

I am a marriage and family counselor. I spend the majority of my working hours helping couples focus and work on their marriages. One of the first questions I ask couples is this: Are you committed to your marriage? Here this guy was telling people not to focus on their marriage. He definitely had my attention.

What is wrong with “marriage”?

I’ve heard it many times, “I’m 100% committed to my marriage”. On the surface, this sounds like a great statement. People that say it, mean it and have fantastic, whole-hearted intentions. However, I believe there are dangers that can arise when the “marriage” becomes our focus:

1. The Danger of Legalism: When we begin to “work” on our marriages, we tend to have a vision of what the process and final product will look like. We read books about how to have the perfect marriage, we study what scripture says, and then we form a checklist of tasks to accomplish in order to maintain a “perfect” marriage.
   *monthly date night–check
   *attend church together–check
   *pick up my dirty laundry–check
   While there is nothing wrong with doing these things, our focus tends to shift to maintaining our checklist rather than knowing our spouse. We can easily slip into this mentality in our relationship with God as well.
2. The Danger of Contract Thinking: Once we succumb to a checklist mindset, we easily notice the items our spouses are not getting checked off.
   *He forgot to plan a date night.
   *She left her shoes in the living room again!
   When we have a heightened awareness of where our spouse is failing, we not only tend to miss their successes, but we also give ourselves an excuse to slip.
3. The Danger of Selfish Thinking: Legalistically keeping check-lists (real or implied) and contract thinking are rooted in selfishness. Our focus becomes ourselves. We see the long list of tasks we’ve accomplished in an effort to strengthen our marriage and compare it to the long list of failures we’ve noticed in our spouse.

A Better Way: Focus on God and Your Spouse

In the Sermon on the Mount (found in Matthew 5 and following), Christ challenges his followers by raising the standard of the law to apply not only to outward actions but also to the inward life of the heart. In our marriages, we make a commitment to God and our spouse. We do not say vows to a marriage–the vows create a marriage. {Tweet This}

Often we get caught up in keeping the letter of the law, we stay married because “God hates divorce” (Mal. 2:16). However, if we are missing God’s original intent when He created marriage–the intimate union of two people as a symbol of Christ and the church–then we are still missing the mark (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:32). We may be legally married on paper, but in reality we are room-mates working hard to check items off a list and totally missing the relationship in the process. We need to shift our focus.

1. Focus on Your Relationship with the Lord (Matt. 6:23) The reality is that both parties in a marriage are sinners. Both need to be plugged in with the Lord and allowing His Holy Spirit to fill and work in their life. As stated previously, the goal is not to create a check-list for “building my relationship with God” but to genuinely seek the Lord as He leads you and accept His grace when you don’t get it right.
2. Focus on Your Relationship with your Spouse. Interestingly, most of the passages in Scripture that use the word “marriage” are talking about a wedding feast or celebration. The passages addressed to husbands and wives instruct them in how to act toward their spouse (Eph. 5:22-33). You know your spouse better than I do and better than any book on marriage you will read. You know how best to connect with him or her. Find ways to do those things. Also, seek ways to serve your spouse. How can you ease their burden?

I realize this post really deals with semantics, but I truly believe that the way we choose to think about concepts affects our actions, beliefs, and feelings. By choosing to focus our thinking on strengthening our relationships with God and our spouses, our marriages will naturally grow and flourish.

What was your initial reaction to the title of this post? What is your response now having read the explanation?

Photo Source: C. P. Storm