Transcript: Marriage Wildfires

Welcome back to PeaceSmart marriage relationships.  In this session, we want to talk about marriage conflict; marriage Wildfire. 

The enemy hates marriage.  He attacked the first marriage. And he attacks marriage because marriage was established to represent the mystery of the relationship between Jesus Christ and His Church. 

Every marriage between believers is intended to represent the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church. And every marriage that the enemy can bring down and destroy damages that representation to the world.  If the enemy can destroy marriage, he can destroy this relationship that the Lord created to represent this mystery. 

So know that if you're a Christian and you're married, the enemy is going to come at you. He's going to try to bring down your marriage.  And when we know that he is going to bring the attack, it helps us recognize where these attacks come from when they occur. Just like the dynamics of conflict that we've talked about in earlier sessions, the marriage Wildfire is very similar, but it's often more intense.  

The fire traps of offense are more prevalent in marriage conflict, because the marriage relationship is more intimate than other relationships. You spend more time with your spouse, you do more things with your spouse.  Your spouse sees you as you really are, for the most part. And when we see one another, we see all our faults, all our blemishes, all the things that the Lord's at work doing, changing us, and all the things that Lord wants to change and will change one day.  When we see those things and we interact with those dynamics, sparks fly and offense is taken.  

Oftentimes marriage conflict offense is caused unintentionally.  A husband will say something and a wife will interpret it differently than he intended it to be interpreted, and she takes offense.  A wife will say something to the husband that she intends to be conveyed in a certain way and he interprets it in a different way, and he takes offense. And when one spouse takes offense, the other spouse recognizes that they've misinterpreted what they've said and then they take offense. And pretty soon offence is built upon offence, built upon offence and we leave the room. 

There are a lot of fantastic marriage resources available to talk about the dynamics of the marriage relationship, how men are different from women, how to navigate those relationships, how to resolve conflicts as they occur but what I want to talk to you about is something that's very simple.  A simple approach to marriage conflict that enables you to bring your relationship before the Lord and let Him have his way with your relationship and to change your relationship day by day to reflect the image of Jesus Christ more and more.  It’s what the Lord is at work doing in your individual lives as husband and wife. 

He desires to change you; to transform you into His image. And He desires to do the same in your marriage, that your marriage will reflect the relationship of Jesus Christ in his Church. 

Do you remember back when we were talking about God's purpose in conflict and seeking revelation of the Lord's purpose in each conflict? And that when we understand the Lord's purpose, it'll change our priorities in responding to conflict.  It’s no different than marriage conflict. 

We know that God's purpose in marriage is for the marriage relationship to reflect the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church, and that husbands are to love their wives and lay down their lives for their wives as Jesus Christ did for the church and their wives or to submit to their husbands as the church submits to Jesus Christ.  So when the relationship does not reflect that image, the Lord is at work. I n every one of your marriage conflicts, the Lord is at work exposing things that He wants to change. 

But because of the level of intimacy, because of the amount of time you spend together because of the similar familiarity you have with one another, we are much more tempted to look to the lantern, try to figure out the problem, resolve the situation without considering what the Lord is at work doing in the midst of that situation. 

We often look at marriage conflict as something that we're to resolve between ourselves until it gets to a very serious level, and then we get other people and the Lord involved. But even in those minor conflicts, those minor marriage conflicts, the Lord is at work changing you, sharpening you, smoothing some rough edges.  And He uses your spouse in that process. 

When we change our way of thinking about that and stop seeing our spouse as our enemy and start seeing them as God's instrument and God's instrument of blessing in our lives, if we remember that our role to love or our role to submit takes precedence over our self-interest, it can change our priorities in how we respond to conflict. 

Every Christian marriage has seasons of difficulty, seasons of challenge, seasons of frustration.  The fact that you have conflict in your marriage, doesn't mean you married the wrong person, doesn't mean that you've outgrown your relationship with one another.

The relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church is eternal.  And marriage is to reflect that, that love, that type of commitment, that relationship that is going through seasons of growth, seasons of challenge. 

Now, some of you have been through failed marriages. And I don't want you to be discouraged by anything. I'm saying here. 

Wherever you are, the Lord is at work. And He's taught you things through your previous marriage, and for some of you, maybe even previous marriages, and you've learned things about marriage, you've learned things about conflict, and you have the opportunity to take all of that before the Lord and ask Him to teach you, ask Him to change you, ask Him to make you a wife, if you ever marry again, who knows to submit to her husband, or a husband, who knows to lay down his life and to sacrifice his life and to love his wife. 

And if you're single and marriage is in your future, that the Lord will teach you these things now in preparation so that you will be prepared to be a husband who loves his wife, a wife who understands that the priority of submitting to her husband.

So that when the Wildfires ignite, you can stand in the Wildfire and not be governed by solely by the relationship dynamics of the marriage. That that your relationship with Jesus Christ is the motivating power that provides you the place of peace in the midst of that conflict while you seek the Lord about what He's doing. 

What He wants to do in the situation and what He wants you to do as a husband or wife in the midst of a marriage conflict because the temptation to just fix the problem instead of bringing it before the Lord and asking Him what is he doing? What does he want to change? What has been exposed here?  

When we don't do that, He's going to bring those things back to the surface again and again, until we deal with them.  Whatever the root cause of the conflict is, whatever the heart desire that He's exposing, that he wants to change in one of you.  

So much opportunity in marriage conflict, yet so much destruction when we focus only on the problem, and what someone has done wrong, or someone's sin, and we let that become the dividing point. 

And then we take offense and we justify by our offense, we justify our position, we elevate our self-interest, and we require of our spouse to bow down and do the thing that we require in order for us to restore relationship, when all the while we're the one caught in the trap of offense that we don't realize it. We think we're right. 

So, in marriage conflict, the Lord's purposes at the trap of offense are no different than they are in any other type of conflict.  He desires to deliver from the trap of offense. He desires to transform his people into His image, and your marriage.  He desires reconciliation of relationships, and he desires to destroy the works of the devil.

But there's an additional purpose that he has for a wife in a marriage conflict. And as a wife who is involved in a marriage conflict, you have the privilege opportunity to go to the Peacefire, go before the Lord, enter His presence humbly, with a desire to please Him by faith and in love, and ask Him this question:  Lord what do you want me to do to submit to my husband?  How do I submit to My husband in this situation?  

Asking that question, putting that before the Lord, the Lord will lead you and guide you in the way that you should go. As you seek Him, what does submission look like in the situation that you're in; in the conflict that you're in?  And don't confuse submission with giving in to your husband's fleshly desires.  

If your husband is asking you to do something that is a sinful submitting to that desire is a challenge.  Only by taking that before the Lord can you gain wisdom and how to respond to such a such a request, because he's clearly the husband asking his wife to sin is not loving his wife as Christ loved the church. 

But what submission looks like in that situation can only be revealed at the Peacefire by seeking the Lord in his Word and sometimes by even seeking Godly counsel from a Christian Leader, which is why those of you taking this course as Christian leaders, you can be equipped to encourage and counsel others to seek the Lord in the midst of their conflicts. 

One temptation as a Christian Leader that you face when people come to you with a conflict is the temptation to be the fix it guy, or the fix it gal. To hear their situation, to hear the conflict to hear the problem, and then tell them what to do. 

Usually, our counsel may be based and grounded in God's word and we may believe wholeheartedly in the advice and counsel we're giving them.  Maybe it's counsel we read in one of those marriage books. And it may be excellent counsel for someone.  But it may not be excellent counsel for this couple. 

Each situation, each couple, the dynamics of conflict are different.  The dynamics in the Wildfire are unique.  And what the Lord is doing in each of their lives is unique.  And only by seeking the Lord in prayer, only by encouraging each of the spouses to go before the Lord and ask the Lord, what does it look like to submit to my husband? In this situation?  What do you want me to do? 

The husband’s opportunity is no different than the wives but the question is different. Lord, how do you want me to love my wife?  What does it look like in this conflict, Lord, to love my wife?  Because when marriage conflict ignites, self-interest is heightened, defenses are heightened. justifications are heightened. 

Sometimes their perceptions are skewed especially when offenses are unintended but they're taken.  And we find that our spouse is offended by something that we did that we really didn't intend to be directed to them in an offensive way.  So how do we respond in those situations? 

Well, we can respond out of the flesh and say, why did you take offense at that? I didn't mean it that way.  You're being silly.  Have you ever tried that one?  How did your wife respond?  Or how did your husband respond?  Probably by taking offense and further escalating the conflict. 

Recognize that in a marriage conflict, oftentimes it's a situation of perspective, a situation of interpretation.  Men and women are different.  We see things differently, we interpret things differently, we feel things differently.  And so when those differences interact, conflict often ignites and offense is often taken. 

Remember, get out of the trap before you try to resolve the conflict.  

In marriage, relationships, unlike others, even more so than others, that intensity of the offense will prevent you from resolving the conflict.  Our mind tells us that we have to have the other person do what we want before we will let them off the hook.  We don't recognize that we're offended. We're in the trap. 

If my wife has offended me, my flesh will tell me that she has to do A, B, and C, before everything will be restored.  Recognize that I've placed myself in the position of judge and jury.  And I've handed out a sentence.  I've created an expectation. 

Now, it may be an honest expectation, and it may even be a good expectation. But I'm still operating out of offence.  And I'm trapped.  And I'm not where the Lord wants me to be. 

I need to restore that relationship.  I need to get out of the trap of offense, restore my relationship with the Lord, get back to the place where I can get before the Lord and say, Lord, what do you want me to do to love my wife in this situation?  How do I love my wife, go back and restore a relationship with her, and then talk about the situation? 

The relationship is more important than the offense. The offense is trying to hinder and destroy the relationship.  Remember, the enemy's goal is a trap of offense to simply to hinder our walk with Jesus Christ, get our eyes off of Him, get our eyes focused on the Wildfire, get our eyes focused on what's wrong with our spouse. get our eyes off of the priority of loving her or submitting to Him.  

But when we come to the Peacefire, we can restore our priorities, we can restore relationship, we can ask forgiveness and then we can talk about those issues that have been exposed and continue to deal with the guidance of the Holy Spirit about what the Lord is doing in our midst and in our marriage, recognizing that his goal is to transform our marriage, and that he wants to use those conflicts to do that, rather than the enemy's goal of using those conflicts to hinder our relationship and eventually destroy it.

The opportunity to love and submit to one another is more important than winning the argument.  The opportunity to love and submit to one another is more important than being right. 

There's a place and a time to talk about who's right.  But in most marital arguments, both parties, both spouses are right from where they sit.  From their perspective they are right.  And when we focus on who's right, offenses will occur, potential will escalate, and until one of you is able to get to the Peacefire and ask the Lord, Lord, how do I love my wife? What do you want me to do to love my wife?

The love that's required in those conflict Wildfires can only be found at the Peacefire. The peace that you need to walk through that season of conflict with a spouse, it can only be found at the Peacefire.  So don't be discouraged that you have a marriage that is painted with a lot of conflict. 

The Lord's at work in every one of those conflicts and as you seek Him, he'll show you what He wants you to do, how to submit, how to love, and he'll bring blessing to your marriage.  And as each one is resolved, as He, moment by moment, day by day from glory to glory changes you, changes your spouse, and changes your whole relationship, one day, it may be days, it may be weeks, it may be months, it may be years, you’ll recognize that there's been a change that has occurred in your relationship and you're beginning to see a reflection of the relationship between Jesus Christ and his Church in your marriage. 

Thanks for watching this session. God bless you. We'll see you next time.