Reading: Marriage Rescued from the Brink of Disaster with a Firm Foundation in Jesus Christ

MARRIAGE RESCUED FROM THE BRINK OF DISASTER WITH A FIRM FOUNDATION IN JESUS CHRIST 

By Kristine Koetje-Balder

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

SUBMIT TO GOD - BOTH OF YOU. God has to be at the center of the marriage. God needs to heal you, but He can't if you don't let Him in. If there is a spouse who committed an offense, then this spouse needs healing for the underlying causes of betrayal; the other spouse needs healing from the effects of the betrayal. Get into your prayer closets and seek God. Ask him to heal you.

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

CREATE NEW MEMORIES. It is important to avoid doing things and going places with a lot of down time, like a long vacation or dinners out. Don't put yourselves in a position where you just stare at each other and need to force a conversation. Chances are, you probably don't have many positive things to say at this point. It is important to lighten the load, not add to it.  

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

CREATE NEW MEMORIES (Cont'd). Creating new memories can include a pact that there will be a photo album and you will fill this album with pictures of new events, new places, and new times. Pictures can be taken of your children, God's nature, and beautiful scenery, or opportunities of serving others. This could be the joint Sunday school class that you are teaching together. This photo album will be intended to hold a dear place in your heart from this day forward. 

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

BE MINDFUL OF WHO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME WITH. Watch out for friends and family that stir the pot. They may judge your husband or wife and treat him or her unkindly. They may decide that divorce is the best option. All advice is not good advice. If someone does offer advice you wish to take, make sure it lines up with the Word of God and will benefit your marriage. Trust the Holy Spirit to be your guide and to help you evaluate the counsel of others. Nurture positive relationships that lift up and edify your marriage, and avoid the ones that add drama or try to tear it down.  

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

DECIDE ON THREE ACTION ITEMS YOU NEED YOUR SPOUSE TO COMMIT TO DOING. Get honest and suggest three physical things that will help to rebuild trust. If one spouse had an affair with someone at work, he or she may agree to come home right after work and not attend after-hours functions. If a spouse has an issue with money, he or she may need to agree to submit to a budget for accountability. While these action items may not entirely eliminate the distrust, it will help cushion the worry and suspicion and get the marriage on the way to regain trust.

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

HOLD HANDS AND PRAY. Prayer immediately invites the presence of God into your relationship and shows unity in a spiritual, emotional, and physical way. The posture is one of complete surrender to God. Together, you invite the power of God to invade this situation that you cannot conquer on your own.  

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

DON'T REHASH THE OFFENSE. Though it may be impossible to forget, as you draw closer to God and work with your spouse on rebuilding trust, the memory of the offense will have decreasing power. It may pop up on occasion in your mind and may even stir you, but it will no longer own you. Focus on the Lord, more than what has been done to you. (Strawberry)

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL.  When you wholeheartedly forgive your spouse for having an affair, you model the grace Jesus offers.  When you extend mercy and don't beat your husband over the head with a past failure, you model the love Jesus came to give.  When you allow God to heal you from your wife's betrayal instead of wallowing in bitterness, you model the work of the Holy Spirit.  

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL (Continued). God commands us to forgive. This is not up for negotiation. Colossians 3:13 tells us to "Forgive your brother his sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes to back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him.” (Luke 17:3-4)

When you choose not to forgive yourself or others, you deny the power of the cross. When you deny the power of the cross, you deny the resurrection. When you do that, you deny the faith - you flat-out deny Jesus Christ.

WAYS TO START THE PROCESS OF REBUILDING BROKEN TRUST

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL (Continued). If you refuse to forgive, bitterness will eat away at your faith and rob you of the power, promises, and blessings that could be yours through faith in Jesus Christ. You will not heal or move forward in your life or in your marriage. You'll remain stuck. How about the saying, "Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping that the other person dies.”

What if the war still rages on and there is only temporary relief? The feeling will be that forgiveness was given and working. But the second that the thoughts come about your spouse, the offense, or the mistake, emotions will then erupt all over again.  Bitterness will flood the soul.

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL

Have you ever felt this way?

Do you battle with unforgiveness?

Are you struggling to forgive your spouse for the affair?

Are you clinging to words that were said and cannot quiet your mind?

Are you holding onto a grudge that happened in the marriage years ago?

"Dear Soul,  you do not understand forgiveness. You do not understand in your heart the work of the cross accomplished by Jesus Christ. You are trying to forgive with your head and your human efforts.  But this must come through your heart, through the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness can never be accomplished through you! It is not your work. It is the work of Jesus!” 

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL

FORGIVENESS IS NOT...

A feeling. You will usually never feel like forgiving someone who has harmed, hurt, or betrayed you.

Magic. Everything does not suddenly become okay simply because you forgive. You have to step into the processes of healing and rebuilding trust.

A pardon. That minimizes the severity and consequences of the offense.

Always a reunion. It takes one person to forgive and two to be reunited. Forgiveness will lead to reunion if both the husband and wife are extending forgiveness.

FORGIVENESS IS ESSENTIAL

FORGIVENESS IS....

Freedom! The release!

The power that separates you from festering anger, rage, and resentment.

A requirement for God's forgiveness of you. "But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:15)

The operational system that cleanses the heart.

Your entrance into healing and wholeness.

A choice. (Too much is at stake not to forgive.)

CHARACTER IS ESSENTIAL

When trust and forgiveness are returning to a marriage that was on the brink of disaster, love will be carried out through character. Most couples want the love but lack the proper character, which is what Galatians 5:22-23 refers to as the fruit of the spirit, or "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These characteristics make us capable of love. And they also transform the marriage into the image of God.

These are the traits that will endure.

CHARACTER IS ESSENTIAL

You will need love when the romance wears off.

You will need joy when difficulties arise or life seems dull or unsatisfying.

You will need to hold your peace when you have misunderstandings.

You will need patience when you want to lash out in anger.

You will need gentleness and goodness when the harshness of life arises.

You will need faithfulness when you want to call it quits.

You will need self-control to overcome temptation.

These characteristics protect and sustain marriage.

IS LOVE ENOUGH? 

The understanding of the world's view of love is distorted and destructive. Love is the most misunderstood, misused, and improperly pursued thing in this world. Love in this sense is not enough. A superficial understanding of a commitment principle cannot sustain a relationship for a lifetime. 

LOVE AS GOD DESIGNED. 

God's kind of love is enough. God's love is rooted and grounded in faith. It anchors itself deeply in commitment and is stronger than feelings. It seeks and desires to fulfill the purpose of marriage. This kind of love can only be fulfilled through the plan, design, and direction of God. When Godly love is achieved, the feelings of love will be there. (Strawberry) 

LOVE

Here is the translation from The Message Bible and 1 Corinthians 13:

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut.

Doesn't have a swelled head.

Doesn't force itself on others.

Isn't always "me first.”

Doesn't fly off the handle.

LOVE

Doesn't keep score of the sin of others.

Doesn't revel when others grovel.

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.

Puts up with anything.

Trusts God always.

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back, 

But keeps going to the end.

(I Corinthians 13: 4-7) (Strawberry)

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

Pray, according to John 14:26 (NASB) that "the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father has sent in Jesus name... will teach your spouse all things, and bring to their remembrance all that the Lord has said.”

Pray, according to John 16:8-14 (NASB), that the Holy Spirit "will convict your spouse concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.” Pray that the Holy Spirit, "the Spirit of truth....will guide your spouse into all the truth.”

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

Pray, according to Ephesians 1:17-19 (NASB) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to your spouse a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. Pray that the eyes of their heart may be enlightened, so that they may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward those who believe.

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

And according to Ephesians 3:14-20 (NASB): I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant my spouse, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in their heart through faith; and that they, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that they may be filled up to all fullness of God. And give the glory to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

In Psalm 32:8 (NASB) the Lord says, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.”

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

Malachi 2:14-16 (AMP) can be prayed in this way:

     (Your spouse's name), the Lord was witness (to the covenant made at your marriage)

      Between you and the husband/wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt 

       Treacherously and to whom you were faithless. Yet he/she is your companion and the

       Husband/wife of your covenant (made by your marriage vows and state the date).

        And did God make (you and your wife/husband) one flesh?  Did not One make you

        And preserve your spirit alive?  And why did God make (state names of husband and wife) 

        You one?  Because He sought a Godly offspring (from your union).  Therefore, take heed to 

        Yourselves, and let no one deal treacherously and be faithless to the wife/husband of 

         His/her youth.

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

 Malachi 2:14-16 (AMP) (continued): For the Lord, the God of Israel says: "I hate divorce and marital separation, and him or her who covers his garment (his wife or her husband) with violence. Therefore, keep a watch upon your spirit (that it may be controlled by My Spirit) that you deal not treacherously and faithlessly (with your marriage mate).

PRAYING SCRIPTURE TO SAVE YOUR MARRIAGE

Be encouraged by Joshua 1:9 (NASB) in which the Lord says, "Have I not commanded you?  Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Philippians 1:6 (NASB) reminds us that we can be "confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”   (Kenworthy)

WORKS CITED

Beall, Cindy. Rebuilding A Marriage Better Than New. Eugene: Harvest House Publishers, 2016. Print.

Chapman, Gary. Desperate Marriages. Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 2008. Print.

Clarke, David Dr., Clarke, William G. I Don't Want A Divorce. Grand Rapids: Revell, 2009. Print.

Clinton, Tim and Pat Springle. Break Through. Brentwood: Worthy Publishing, 2012. Print.

Kenworthy, Ken. Before The Last Resort. Little Rock: Family Life Publishing, 2008. Print..

Smedes, Lewis B. The Art of Forgiving. New York City: Ballantine Books, 1996. Print.

Strawberry, Darryl, and Tracy Strawberry. The Imperfect Marriage. New York City: Howard Books, 2014. Print.