A Good Marriage - Creative Dating

 

 

As we prioritize our life and fit our marriage into our list of the responsibilities, we often find our self arranging expensive dinners and outings. This is not necessary, however. A picnic in nature, popcorn and iced tea with a TV movie, or hot cocoa and s'mores in front of the fireplace are just as fulfilling.

 

The object of date nights is to relax, to enjoy each other's company, and to gaze into one another's eyes in order to see the love filling them. We just need quality time to connect, to bond, and to give smooches on the lips instead of hurried pecks on the cheek. 

 

Creative dating is challenging, but fun at the same time. Both husband and wife can participate in the planning or in arranging a surprise date that we think our mate will enjoy. We can take turns booking a babysitter that we trust and who will show up on time.

 

However, our best dates can occur right at home. Put the kids to bed and then watch a movie on TV, or listen to the music channel while snuggling and chatting on the couch, or enjoy a Christian broadcasting special together. The key word is "together".

 

As we daily choose to include one another in our plans, activities and options, we grow closer. Laughter, playfulness and talking about what we are thinking will all make this time together more enjoyable. Occasional, serious discussions about our interests and concerns also enable us to connect more deeply.

 

Making adjustments in our habits, decisions and schedules allow this to occur too. Our dating hinders the devil from planning traps that cause us to drift apart. Life already gives us enough surprises to deal with; so if we draw near to God and resist the devil, then he has to flee from us (James 4:7).

 

Sincerely caring about one another builds affection. Showing empathy and compassion for our mate's disappointments helps us to create a deeper unity between us. We just need to schedule daily couple time into our weekly calendar and make it our top priority. 

 

Prayer:

Father God, as marriage partners, we often see each other through the filter of past experiences, relationships and trauma. We project onto each other's responses the attitude and emotions which we experienced from significant others in our former interactions. Remind us that You want to heal us from these past traumatic occurrences. Teach us how to accept each other as individuals, separate from the people in our past.

 

Help us to make You a priority in our time together too. Instruct us on how to appreciate, respect and honor You and one another. Remind us to schedule time to play together, to share true and intimate affection, to remember to do the little things for our mate that means so much to them, and to cherish each other. Inspire us to create our time together to include our spouse's interests as well as our own. Teach us to create dates that do not overload our budget, but still allow quiet and relaxation, free from the concerns and issues that normally engulf our attention.

 

Thought for the Day:

Every locality offers enjoyable free events that can serve as creative couple time; and "at home dates" give us stress-free time to relax and to make wonderful memories to cherish for a lifetime; the key is for us to love our mate with his/her “love language,” and not with our own “love language,” because this is the only way that they will truly feel valued and appreciated.

( https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/ ) 

Spiritual Reality

 

 

As Born Again Believers, we eventually realize that Christ in us is the wisdom of God, and we gain spiritual revelation that is beyond human understanding (1 Corinthians 2:24,30). His wisdom is full of mercy, spiritual fruit, purity, peace and has no instability and pretense (James 3:7).

 

We enter God’s rest when we allow Him to equip us with what we need to accomplish His plans for our life. He incorporates into our soul – which is our thoughts, emotions and choices – what is pleasing in His sight (Hebrews 13:20). 

 

If we feel anxiety rising in our soul, we can ask Him for His peace to guard our heart (Philippians 4:6-7). Jesus promised to give us His peace – eternal, internal peace - that invades our soul with His rest (John 14:27). 

 

Once we allow Him to save us, He provides us with this serenity, regardless of our circumstances (1 Corinthians 1:18; 2 Thessalonians 3:16). In fact, Christ in us is our peace, which we experience when we decide to allow His attributes to rule in our heart, rather than the fear and anxiety that the devil attempts to plant there (Romans 5:10; Ephesians 2:14; Colossians 3:15). 

 

Christ’s Spirit continues this transformation through the process of sanctification. God sets us apart to be a living testimony of Christ in us, which affects our emotions, thoughts, actions, choices and behavior. He gives us His abundant life (John 10:10), by filling us through all of our being with all of His fullness by His Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:16-19, Amplified Bible). 

 

Then, He helps us to grow in His grace and to mature in our relationship with Jesus (2 Peter 3:18). We no longer struggle with sin and carnality (Romans 7), because we find that He does not condemn us, and He gives us His power to abide in the reality of His presence within us (Romans 6 & 8).

 

When we accept His Word as Truth, God’s Spirit illuminates for us the deep insights of His Truth, and we eagerly walk in the ways of God (Isaiah 55:8-9; 1 Corinthians 2:10; Romans 11:33). Thankfully, God is beyond human understanding, and He rules and reigns in the heart of His Saints.

 

Prayer:

Father God, thank You for making our walk with You so simple. Once we accept by faith the Truth of Your Word, we come to intimately know You as You abide within our spirit. We also realize that we are known by You (1 Corinthians 8:1-3; Matthew 7:23). Remind us that it is by our personal and intimate relationship with You that we take deep breaths, relax, and enter into Your rest (Philippians 3:8-10).

 

Your Truth sets us free from the need to comprehend spiritual concepts with our finite mind (John 8:32). Christ in us sets us truly free from having to bring You and Your precepts down to our level (John 8:36). We come to realize by experience that You are our only way, truth and life (John 14:6), and we no longer have any need to understand You through carnal means and methods (1 Corinthians 1:20-21).

 

Thought for the Day:

When we try to understand the infinite Trinity of God with our human, finite intellect and reasoning, we cannot make the connection; we feel that we have to reject the truth of God’s Word by rationalizing our beliefs with our humanistic understanding, which is not reality at all.

-      Ecclesiastes 1:17; 1 Corinthians 3:18-20

 

Resting in God’s Will

 

 

At salvation, we joyfully receive the divine nature of God, as well as the fruit of His Spirit (2 Peter 1:4; Galatians 5:22-23). These characteristics are worked into our personality by the Spirit of God from one stage of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18), until we are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10). 

 

Eventually, we barely recognize who we are, although we like our self so much better than who we used to be. In the Body of Christ, our gifts differ from one another. Our strengths make up for each other’s weaknesses (1 Corinthians 12:7). This makes us a complete Body, in which Christ can continue His ministry on the earth (Romans 12:8).

 

When we live on this earth with the abundant life of Christ in us (Galatians 2:20), Jesus is able to carry on His ministry through every authentic, Born Again Believer according to His power that works in and through us (Ephesians 3:20). 

 

His abundant grace abounds in us, and it makes us capable of accomplishing His work on the earth (2 Corinthians 9:8). He also provides us with His strength to live and minister in His name (1 Peter 4:11; 2 Corinthians 3:5). As new creations, we are complete in Christ (1 Corinthians 2:20-21; 2 Corinthians 5:17).

 

The power and sufficiency of God flows through us by His Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 1:24; Ephesians 3:16). We are earthen vessels, but with God’s great power and patience in us, we can attain the steadfast diligence, which we need to live according to His will for us (Colossians 1:11). 

 

God blesses us with every spiritual blessing that Jesus possesses, including an abundant life (Ephesians 1:3; John 10:10). The more we know Him and His glory and excellence, the more we inherit what we need pertaining to life and Godliness (2 Peter 1:3).

 

Nothing comes from us, but everything comes from Him through us (Philippians 4:13; 2 Corinthians 4:7). He sets us free from performing works for God, when we realize that He wants to accomplish His will through us (Ephesians 2:8-9; Proverbs 3:5-6). We can do everything that He calls us to achieve (Philippians 4:13).

 

Prayer:

Father God, once we learn to abide in Your rest through our union with You in our spirit, then we ask you to teach us to also view life through Your rest in our soul – our thoughts, emotions and choices. We cease from our own efforts, and we allow Your good pleasure to work in and through us instead. We want Jesus to be able to use us for His purposes for our day and our life, so that He can do greater works through us (John 14:12). 

 

Jesus fulfilled Your scriptural promises to us, and they are ours now and throughout eternity (2 Corinthians 1:20). Teach us to cease from our religious works on Your behalf and to stop performing good works for You (Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 4:10-11), so that we can enter Your rest and find renewal for our weary soul as You accomplish Your works in and through us (Matthew 11:28-29; Jeremiah 6:16).

 

Thought for the Day:

A hectic pace is not indicative of a productive or successful life - even Jesus said that if He does not “build the house” we will labor in vain; our identity is not based in what we do or accomplish, but in who we are in Christ and with Christ in us; we enter His rest, walk in His Spirit, consult Him throughout the day, and He does the rest.

-      Psalm 127:1; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 5:15-25

 

Blind Spots

 

 

I was helping to prep for VBS crafts this past spring, and I was distressed because I could not cut the tractor wheels in perfectly round units – even though I had a good templet to draw them. There were still little points and flat spots on each one, and when I tried to round them out, I made them too small.

 

I mentioned this to my co-worker, “Maybe you should get someone more talented to cut the circles, because I cannot make them perfect.”

 

She responded:

“Kathy, no one is going to judge you for how round you cut out the tractor wheels.”

 

I was taken back by her comment, and I wondered if maybe I had another “blind spot” in my walk of which I was not aware (Psalm 19:12-13). I was glad she said that to me, because I spent quite a bit of time consulting the Sanctifier of my Soul about this issue that day and the next. 

 

After a while the Holy Spirit said to me, “Excuse me, but you are a Pastor’s wife. You are used to being judged about a variety of issues, and I already taught you the way to change your focus about these subjects. Actually, you were distressed for another reason.”

 

As I continued to pray, the Sanctifier asked, “What was your real reason for being concerned?” In response, I started to cry, and I confessed, “Because I didn’t want the little children to be disappointed because their wheels were not perfectly round.”

 

When I mentioned this to my co-worker, she responded, “I honestly think that they are too young to even notice.” Then I consulted another of my co-workers about this, and she pointed out, “The wheels on the trucks on our stage props are not perfectly round either. We are human, not machines.”

 

This solved the problem for me. I breathed a sigh of relief, because I felt that I would not disappoint those little ones after all. Then I finished cutting out 25 more sets of four wheels, praising God that I was able to help prep the crafts for our children’s program. 

 

Prayer:

Father God, You already taught me that “perfectionism” is a demonic ploy to keep us stressed, and unsatisfied with our efforts, as well as the efforts of those around us. I repented of this sin years ago; and now, I make every effort to accept others and myself just the way we are with all the roots of our idiosyncrasies and personal peculiarities exposed. I am so much more relaxed since You started to set me free from this demonic trait.

 

I am so grateful to You for Your Holy Spirit’s work in our soul. It feels so good to see the sanctifying work that You accomplish in us. We are not the person that we used to be, and we rejoice that we are not the person that we will be, as You continue to perfect us into the image of Your dear begotten Son, Jesus. We look forward to serving with Jesus, as co-heirs of Your Kingdom, and to spending eternity with Your Saints.

 

Thought for the Day:

We are often blind-sided by our errors and faults that we do not see; they cause us to commit presumptuous sins, which often secretly control our life; however, God’s Spirit brings them to light, heals us, and makes us innocent of these sneaky transgressions, as He prevents them from having future dominion over us.

-      Psalm 19:12-13

 

Carefree Present Moments

 

 

As we mature spiritually, we come to realize that we have no need to worry about anything, because God is faithful. We take our requests to Him in grateful prayer, and we seek His will, provision and protection for each moment of our day. 

 

This way, His peace, which is greater than anything this world has to offer to us, protects our heart and mind through Christ in us (Philippians 4:6-7). Otherwise, worry, stress, and trials will ruin our health and keep us imprisoned by negative emotions.

 

The stillness, that we create around us during our quiet times of vigil, seeps inside of us; and we experience a humble longing to know God more deeply. Rather than experiencing desperation from earthly turmoil, we find our self desperate for a closer union with God Himself.

 

A hunger envelops us to the point of famished longing (Psalm 42:1-2). Every fiber of our being yearns to satisfy this craving. Nothing this earth offers can gratify this urgency. Only our relationship with the Lord of life, living and dwelling inside of us, can provide us with this level of fulfillment.

 

No person, place, thing, nor experience can match the depth of intimacy that we have possible with Christ, because no other relationship can come from within us (Colossians 1:27). Our relationship with God gives us peace that is greater than anything that our earthly existence can offer. 

 

When worldly hostility bombards us, our heart is tempted to faint within us. We have the option of sharing this pain, frustration, and sorrow on a human level with friends and family. They, however, will only sympathize with, or "sermonize" to us about our feelings, which will remain the same. 

 

Yet, only in the still, small place within us can we find true empathy and solace from the God who loves us more than He loves Himself (John 3:16-17). When we enter our "inner closet," we strip away all inner and outer clutter. Only our thoughts which are totally Spirit-led, when acted upon, will bear any fruit for the kingdom of God.

 

Prayer:

Father God, heal our codependency, so that we are not driven by the mindset of "martyrdom" or the need to ”save" everyone we meet from their plight in life. Teach us that we are actually enabling and rescuing, rather than assisting them in a healthy way, even if their attitude and habits make it hard on them. Remind us that You desire our goals in life to follow Your Spirit’s leading in everything we think, say and do – just like Jesus.

 

We do not want to make our own plans and ask You to bless them. We want to discover Your purpose for our day and follow Your plans for us. This is the only way that we are guaranteed a life free of sin, stress, guilt and indecision. Your ways our higher than our ways, and You prove to us over and over that You know what is best for us. We love and trust You with our whole heart.

 

Thought for the Day:   

The fulfilled life, guided by the Spirit of God, takes time, effort and commitment as we simplify our life by getting rid of our inner clutter first, and then having a garage sale to rid our home and office of all unnecessary outer clutter; we empty our self of our self and focus solely on the voice of our Beloved God within us. 

 

 

Rest and Tranquility

 

 

What humans need more than anything else is serenity; however, we characteristically fill our schedule with a hectic lifestyle. This inclination keeps us in turmoil physically, mentally, emotionally and often financially as well. We do not even allow our self time to rest on the weekend.

 

To do less than we are doing seems lazy and irresponsible. We want to succeed in our vocation, prove that we are worthy of that promotion, and have valid feelings of pride in what we accomplish through our hard work and self-effort. Our focus rarely includes God’s plans for us (Psalm 37:4).

 

Our identity is based on our performance and what others think of us. We forget that our soul needs time to catch up, to shut down, to coast, to do something fun and fulfilling for a change. We are unaware that our spirit is not maturing due to a lack of basic Christian disciplines.

 

We dream of what we will do once we retire, and we put off enjoying our self for some future date that may never come, due to an unforeseen catastrophe in our life. Due to this disregard, we grow disillusioned, disappointed, and sometimes even bitter and angry.

 

The Biblical account of Martha is very symbolic of most of our lives. We plan extravagant events and end up burnt out from all of the extra effort it takes to accomplish them. We grow resentful because no one will help us to fulfill our goals; yet we trudge along with one foot in front of the other.

 

The scriptural exhortation that encourages us to get out of this maze built by our own activities is succinctly described in a few words, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). Jesus encouraged us to observe the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and to seek His Kingdom first (Matthew 6:28-33).

 

Prayer:

Father God, teach us to remember that we are human “be”-ings, not human “do”-ings. Remind us that You have plans for our life that You formulated for us before You knit us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139). You teach us to stop our striving, and You even call us to enter into Your rest (Hebrews 4:10). Your Word teaches us that our spirit is brought to life from the death of sin through Your regeneration in salvation, and we are complete and fulfilled through Christ in us (Colossians 1:27).

 

Your Word also teaches us that the indwelling presence of Your Trinity gives us love, power, wisdom and a stable mind (2 Timothy 1:7). The fruit of Your Spirit blossoms in our life (Galatians 5:22-23) when we learn to hang out like a branch with Jesus, our Vine; and to allow the life of Your Spirit to flow through us, so that You can use us to bear much fruit throughout our lifetime (John 15:5). We want to walk the straight and narrow road that You plan for our blessing and protection.

 

Thought for the Day:

God does not call us to a life of hassle, hurry, or hustle; we bring that upon our self by our misguided goals, ideals, worldview and need for a positive self-esteem; instead, He calls us to walk in His plans for us and to enjoy His peace, fulfillment and rest to permeate every moment of our day.

-      Philippians 4:9; Romans 15:33; 1 Thessalonians 5:23