Transcript: Spiritual Oneness part 1

Video Transcript: Spiritual Oneness Part 01

Welcome to the final class and thriving marriages. And this class is spiritual oneness seeking God together. Isn't this a beautiful picture? I choose you for life. And that means I choose to draw you closer to God. With every step that I take, especially in a Christian marriage, that would always be the desire and as counselors as pastors, we are not only asking for that marriage to be a union in oneness under God, but definitely a place where they will bot, the husband and the wife feel closer in their walk with God. Spiritual intimacy is crucial if Christian couples are going to experience all the blessings God intends yet too often, it is the one thing Christian marriages lack. Many couples can separately experience spiritual growth but not have spiritual intimacy. Spiritual intimacy is the closeness that comes within marriage, when partners share something of their own spiritual walk with each other.

When partners are asked the question, How close are you spiritually as a couple because this is something that I would often ask, especially in the premarital part of therapy, but even if it is a couple coming in that had been married for years, because this is an underlying base of I'm looking for, and there are usually two responses, many say we're not spiritually close. Or we're not as close as we could be. The second responses I think we would like to be, many couples when they finally talk about or discover they would like to be closer spiritually. But they were uncomfortable dealing with it, it was difficult. So it never was discussed. And pretty soon, it's like that elephant in the room. It's not even addressed. Perhaps there's just not enough time, busy schedules. And there's hardly even enough time to say hello to each other, let alone have devotions together. I know I should talk with my wife about spiritual things a husband could say, but our relationship is not right. In other areas, it feels hypocritical to start talking about God in the Bible. I think this is especially true for my men. And when they have had issues and other areas of the relationship, say that there's irritability, say that there's downright anger, or sometimes there's been rage. And then I'm asking if the husband would pray for the wife. Not only can the husband be hesitant, but sometimes the wife is not comfortable either. I remember one time I had a couple come in. And within the week before, there had been quite an argument. And in the anger of the husband, some very hurtful words were said, he had wanted and felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to pray for his wife, however, did not have the courage to bring it up. Because she had been very much silent and almost pouting after their argument. And he knew that she would not accept or at least he hypothesized she would not accept a prayer time. When they came into the session. 

I sense the same thing. And I asked if we could start with prayer. She was very hesitant. I said, How about some silent prayer, we will just be silent. And the three of us will know at that moment that we are in communion with God. She was willing to accept that. And once we allowed for the silence, it was feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit come into that office. And within 10 minutes, there were verbal expressions of prayer that started to take place. I think the couple needed the help of our therapy time. And the silence allowed their hearts and their minds, especially the wife to be able to receive the prayer. And of course, there was no anger for the husband at that point. And even in his prayer, he was able to ask for the Lord to help him. And the end of our session, the processing part of it that was beyond the prayer, ended up being very much a healing time for that couple. Why do many couples have so little intimacy, 10 or 15 years after their marriage commitment, very likely, it is the same thing that happened in the Garden of Eden. Their personal sin is created within them a spirit of fear, distrust or guilt, so they protect themselves and withdraw from each other. Many marriage partners today feel close to their spouses in every way except spiritually. In that area. they feel isolated. Often this isolation cannot be kept in check. And it may creep into other areas of the couple's life and impact those areas too. And the more one person wants to be close spiritually and the other resists, the more resentment will build. I remember again a case where there had been some line issues and there had been some mistrust and at that point, I could tell In this session, when I asked the question if they had had the ability to pray, because there had been issues with money and budget in line for probably about 10 years, when they finally came into therapy, because it was at a point that their relationship, and the covenant of their marriage was in trouble. We started to talk about this prayer time, they definitely were not comfortable to pray. That is a very intimate place of trust and have been vulnerable, and they did not have trust in the relationship. What I did is I created a sentence completion. And I asked, this was another way to bring intervention into the session. And as a therapist, or as a pastor, to help a couple that are stuck, because of hurt, or because of issues that have been in that relationship, and they no longer feel comfortable to pray. The sentence completion can be as simple as I would like to pray for my wife and ask this of you, Lord. Now finish this.

I know my husband has a need of this in his life, my Lord Jesus, and I would like to pray about, sentence completion. I am very much wanting your help Lord Jesus to continue to pray for my spouse in this, sentence completion. Now, there's three ideas right there. Certainly, this could be left up to the pastor who is involved in this case or the therapist, because you will know your couple very well. That couple was able to start a prayer time with sentence completion, because it gave them a bit more direction. And it didn't feel quite so vulnerable. And actually they ended up creating some sentence completion, prayers at home. And they were quite general to begin with. But they led to be even more specific. And that led to having more spiritual prayer intimacy, for sure. Many marriages, partners today feel close to their spouses in every wave of spirituality. And in that area, they feel Isay, like I just said, so please encourage, this could be something that could help very much the sentence completion. couples can worship regularly together, but there is no spiritual intimacy. Couples can read the Bible regularly together but have no spiritual intimacy. Couples can pray together but still lacking spiritual intimacy. There are other couples who don't pray and share yet have spiritual intimacy is not the same. How about a definition for spiritual oneness and spiritual intimacy. It is based on attitudes, spiritual intimacy as a heart's desire to be close to God and submit to His direction for your life. It is the willingness to seek His guidance together as a couple, to allow the teaching of his word in your everyday life. It's the willingness to allow God to help you overcome your sense of discomfort oversharing, spiritually, and learn to see your marriage together as a spiritual adventure. 

It's a willingness to enthrone Jesus Christ as Lord of your lives, and to look to him for direction in your decisions. It means he will direct both of you and change your hearts to be an agreement. Rather than speak just through one of you. If spiritual intimacy is an attitude, it starts with a thought process, I'd like to bring a little bit of a psychological idea about having that attitude be solid. When we make a decision within our marriage, to have a spiritual oneness with our spouse, it very much can take place, just with the first thought. If the thought is I want to have spiritual oneness, and prayer life with my spouse, that will start to be a desire, the thought within 60 seconds can take root. And once it goes into the mind, to be given further direction to be given further depth to be given further ideas, that becomes a mood. And I would like to present that the mood could be one of happiness, or a feeling close to your spouse, or a feeling some joy. And once it happens, and this takes place for a number of times it becomes belief. That's what attitude can do. Now, on the flip side, if there is some concern or fear or distrust about prayer, because something that's happened in that relationship, the minute that that thought comes, and after 60 seconds if the thought is not challenged, so the thought might be, I know I want prayer with my spouse, however, I don't trust my spouse. I am not going to be vulnerable with my spouse and the minute that goes deeper into the person's mind the husband or wife, that will start to affect mood also not to believe that prayer is going to be important, not to believe that they are going to want to have prayer together, or have the trust to have prayer together. But rather there is just trust. 

That only takes 60 seconds, 60 seconds to hold that thought firm. That's what the mind will do. And then allow it to come in and become a part of the belief system to influence mood. Or if the thought in 60 seconds is a fear and mistrust and I don't want to have prayer. Discard that thought, Holy Spirit, bring the thought that will help me to have trust again, to move towards spiritual intimacy to my spouse. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. But a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Here is another incredibly strong concept and belief for the ability to have spiritual intimacy, in order for a marriage to not only survive, but also to be fulfilling and successful. There needs to be three parties involved the husband or wife and God. The reason marriages have issues in the first place is because every married couple is made up of two imperfect people. One imperfect human plus another imperfect human equals one imperfect marriage. However, if the addition of a perfect God comes into this imperfect mix of two imperfect people, all those could be tongue twisters, then there are limited possibilities for growing closer to the perfection God intended for marriage relationships. You and your spouse can agree on something, but it still can be an issue, if God does not agree with it. For example, if your spouse wants you to view a movie that is sexually explicit scenes in it, and you agree to it, that is a compromise that you have both chose and but it does not agree with God's word. Because this is God word. Therefore God says in Philippians, finally brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. And this would be what the couple would agree on for their marriage. It wasn't such a long time ago, within the last year, that my husband and I, we often will have a movie night on Friday nights, it's just our evening to be able to unwind and not have to think so much about the buisiness of our week. And we found a Western that we both wanted to see. And it had an actor in the western that we both liked as an actor. And so we were in agreement, it didn't even seem like any compromise with God's word. Well, we ended up attending the movie and as the movie started to unfold, the actor certainly was in the movie, but there were issues in this movie that just caused such consternation in my spirit. Oh, I started to feel as if every part of me had to leave. And I remember looking at my husband. And initially he looked at me wondering what I was thinking. 

But then he realized that we now had compromised because there was nothing about this movie that was noble, right or pure, we probably should have looked into it a bit more. And so to not be in compromise anymore, because it was not admirable. And it was not praiseworthy, by any stretch of the imagination. We left that theater, and actually went out and had a nice dinner together and enjoy the rest of our evening and went to bed. And were able to have a clear conscience because we heard and listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the three of us with our Lord God went into agreement. There are far too many couples who have referred to their marriage being Christian, but the only thing that made their marriage Christian was the type of wedding ceremony they had chosen, or the fact that they went to the same church to make a marriage Christian is that the couple is seeking to restore what was lost back in Genesis. In a marriage that is growing spiritually, both partners make the choice regularly to confront not only the shame and defensiveness and fear that any two people are going to encounter in an intimate relationship, but also the brokenness in our relationship with God. The couples endeavoring to restore some part of what Adam and Eve share together with God and the very beginning, unless that search for spiritual intimacy with God is a part of our behavior as a couple, there is little else that distinguishes a marriage as being truly Christian. And look at their and seeking to restore that. There is definitely going to be the power of prayer coming into that relationship. And in such a powerful, authentic way, with intent.

The best place to start taking authority as that couple of justed over your world in your life in your marriage, is by praying regularly for your husband and wife. And for the marriage. When a spouse prays with God given authority, it releases the power of God to work in both of their lives, a spouse cannot change the strong will of their mate. But when the spouse is praying for him or her, there is an invitation for God to create an atmosphere in the spirit realm around him or her that helps the spouse to better see the truth. It was not too long ago that I was working with a couple, and this couple had been intermittently involved in therapy for their marriage, and for the most part, wanted to honor God and continue deepening the covenant under God of their marriage. Well, because of a right of a variety of issues, the wife ended up becoming very vulnerable and having an affair with another man. Because of some of the issues of leaving a trail behind her, the husband did find out about the affair and not serve his wife, it had not come up into their conversations, or no honesty or truth had been given. So the husband made a special appointment with me and talked about what was he to do brokenhearted in a session where sobbing and tears were plentiful throughout the session. We ended up praying in that session together therapist and the husband, and prayed that God would show us what to do. And pray that God would bring an awareness and a prompting to the wife's heart that she would understand that this had to end and there would need to be truthfulness or their freedom could be given to her husband. Interestingly enough, the next week, the wife called and made an appointment with me and came in and said she needed to tell me about something. And as she broke down, now, the dear wife was crying in session, she again gave me the unfolding of how this came to be. 

It was extremely difficult for her to even imagine that she could end this relationship as it did become very deeply emotional. And she wasn't ready to tell her husband, she knew that it was absolutely what God would want her to do, and to speak that truth. So again, I said. How about if we pray about this a couple of days, because I do trust that the Lord will lead you into the decisions of what the Bible would want you to do. So we went into deep prayer. And within a couple of days, she called again and said, I now know without a shadow of a doubt, I need to tell my husband, and I can feel it in my heart and in my spirits. And then we scheduled a joint session. And that session was a time where there was confession, a time when there was forgiveness, a time when there was plans and goals set for the future. And a number of sessions took place after that. But why I'm talking about this is because the prayers of the husband, the prayers that came in the therapy experience created an atmosphere, that there was a will of one of the wife that changed. And she came to a place to be vulnerable enough to speak truth to her husband. You see, God is greater. God is greater than that resistance that was in that wife. God is greater than your husband's anger or your wife's lack of interest in sex. I say these things because they come up quite a bit. He is greater than your wife's depression or your husband's inability to communicate. He is greater than your unforgiveness, or your husband's or wife's hardness of heart. God is powerful enough to help you get out of debt and free of addictions, he is stronger than your bad habits and weak willpower. He made you victorious over all that and so much more. 

But you know, dear husband and wife, you cannot perceive having a form of Godliness but denying its power. Please run to the cross with gratefulness for the Lord's sacrifice on your behalf and acknowledge God's power in your life. He says it is he who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. He has called you for a purpose and this marriage to be a Holy Sacrament. You can choose his destiny for your marriage, or make your own. The life you try to make happen will never be as good as the one. You let God make happen. I'd like to have this provided to you to be able to answer these questions. It's called a spiritual intimacy inventory. This is a list of 36 questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. This inventory will provide an idea of where your marriage is in terms of spiritual intimacy. Because I would like this to be answered as we go into the next two classes of this session, because everyone will get a sense of what areas of spiritual intimacy needs to be worked on in their marriage and what areas already are doing quite well. The goal is to work towards being able to answer yes to the questions asked, however, there most certainly will be questions answered No. And this inventory can serve as a template for discussion regarding aspects of your married life, and what needs to be strengthened and developed in your spiritual walk as a couple and with Jesus. This inventory is provided for you as a document in this section of the course so that you can open it, view it and answer the questions. Thank you.