Trust In Marriage
“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” - Proverbs 3:3-5 NIV
When I think of trust in marriage, I’m reminded of how I felt while dating others before marriage. As a people-pleaser, every move or decision I made was so fragile. If I made one wrong move in a relationship, it was over, and they would move on to the next person. At times, I was treating my marriage that way too. We went through seasons where I struggled with trusting my wife, not because of anything she had done but because I had trust issues. If I didn’t trust God to take care of me, why would I trust my wife to take care of me? I would then find myself in self-preservation mode. This only led to even more trust issues and the fragility that I felt existed in my marriage, all while experiencing parenthood for the first time.
I suddenly realized that I needed to start trusting more. Proverbs 3:5 says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding;” but before that, it alludes to faithfulness and love which are both characteristics of my relationship with God and my relationship with my wife.
I felt like the Lord was calling me to trust God without understanding and trust that He was taking care of me, tending to the things in my life that I wouldn’t possess without Him in the first place. I believe wholeheartedly that God brought my wife and me together, so why wouldn’t He continue to cultivate it if we were stewarding it well?
When I look back on my life, God has always been close by. He has never failed to be faithful in every season. So with that, I trust God with every part of who I am: all of my thoughts, my feelings, and my emotions. I trust that if I have a bad day, God loves me the same. I trust that if I do something dumb, His love will never leave nor forsake me. I’ve seen Him do it in the past, and I know He’ll do the same again.
If I trust God, I am called to trust my spouse. Does my spouse have the same track record God does? When I look back on our marriage, she has always been faithful and close to me in every season, but she’s still imperfect. God was calling me to trust outside of my own understanding. I am gifting trust to her. I trust that through God, she can handle my thoughts and feelings, both good and bad. If I have a bad day or do something dumb (which is bound to happen at some point), then I trust that God’s grace will give us the strength to put in the work and get through it.
The enemy would love nothing more than for me to continue to treat my marriage as fragile. Fragility is the enemy of health and growth in relationships. Since my relationship doesn’t feel fragile, I’m cool with bringing up some confrontational things. I’m not afraid to have hard conversations, because I know God is in it. What felt like gifted trust to my spouse, at first, has breathed new life into every aspect of our relationship. The fragility has disappeared, and God has come in and repaired a lot of wounds from my past that were still affecting our marriage.
ACTIVATION: What relationships in your life feel fragile? Process that with the Lord and let the Holy Spirit speak into why.
JOURNAL: Are there conversations or confrontations you are afraid of having because something feels fragile?
PRAYER PROMPT: Does your relationship with God feel fragile? Talk to Him about it. I promise He can handle whatever you throw at Him.
When I think of trust in marriage, I’m reminded of how I felt while dating others before marriage. As a people-pleaser, every move or decision I made was so fragile. If I made one wrong move in a relationship, it was over, and they would move on to the next person. At times, I was treating my marriage that way too. We went through seasons where I struggled with trusting my wife, not because of anything she had done but because I had trust issues. If I didn’t trust God to take care of me, why would I trust my wife to take care of me? I would then find myself in self-preservation mode. This only led to even more trust issues and the fragility that I felt existed in my marriage, all while experiencing parenthood for the first time.
I suddenly realized that I needed to start trusting more. Proverbs 3:5 says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and don’t lean on your own understanding;” but before that, it alludes to faithfulness and love which are both characteristics of my relationship with God and my relationship with my wife.
I felt like the Lord was calling me to trust God without understanding and trust that He was taking care of me, tending to the things in my life that I wouldn’t possess without Him in the first place. I believe wholeheartedly that God brought my wife and me together, so why wouldn’t He continue to cultivate it if we were stewarding it well?
When I look back on my life, God has always been close by. He has never failed to be faithful in every season. So with that, I trust God with every part of who I am: all of my thoughts, my feelings, and my emotions. I trust that if I have a bad day, God loves me the same. I trust that if I do something dumb, His love will never leave nor forsake me. I’ve seen Him do it in the past, and I know He’ll do the same again.
If I trust God, I am called to trust my spouse. Does my spouse have the same track record God does? When I look back on our marriage, she has always been faithful and close to me in every season, but she’s still imperfect. God was calling me to trust outside of my own understanding. I am gifting trust to her. I trust that through God, she can handle my thoughts and feelings, both good and bad. If I have a bad day or do something dumb (which is bound to happen at some point), then I trust that God’s grace will give us the strength to put in the work and get through it.
The enemy would love nothing more than for me to continue to treat my marriage as fragile. Fragility is the enemy of health and growth in relationships. Since my relationship doesn’t feel fragile, I’m cool with bringing up some confrontational things. I’m not afraid to have hard conversations, because I know God is in it. What felt like gifted trust to my spouse, at first, has breathed new life into every aspect of our relationship. The fragility has disappeared, and God has come in and repaired a lot of wounds from my past that were still affecting our marriage.
ACTIVATION: What relationships in your life feel fragile? Process that with the Lord and let the Holy Spirit speak into why.
JOURNAL: Are there conversations or confrontations you are afraid of having because something feels fragile?
PRAYER PROMPT: Does your relationship with God feel fragile? Talk to Him about it. I promise He can handle whatever you throw at Him.
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