Marriage Stew Hows Your Marriage Taste Marriage Stew

Marriage Stew How’s Your Marriage Taste?

Marriage Stew: Structure • • • Ingredients That Spoil (Ways we hurt our marriages) Cookbook Instructions (Biblical instructions to follow) Fresh Ingredients (Ways we can improve our marriage) Cook It (exercises to try each week) The Meal- Are You Enjoying it or choking it down? (assessment… make changes as needed)

Marriage Stew: Required Tools • • Teamwork: You create something together Power to Control: You can make any kind of stew you want Flexibility: You can change the flavor as needed Necessity: You need food to survive (like connection in marriage) Ongoing: You make it (food) daily… not once Responsibility: You made it… Instructions: Recipes are needed Enjoyment: Meant as life-giving pleasure

Better Tasting Marriage Stew Ingredients Include: • Companionship – Fun – Relationship vs. Misaligned Priorities and Desire for Isolation • Connection – Sex – Intimacy vs. Distorted View, Fear and Selfishness • Communication – Influence vs. Power Imbalance and Narcissism • Conflict – Fighting vs. Unchecked Baggage

Marriage Stew A Crisis in Marriage: Every 45 seconds a marriage ends in America. • 1. 2 Million couples across America file for divorce each year. • $112 Billion is the annual cost of divorce to taxpayers • 4 Weeks of work time is lost during the first year after a divorce • $150 Billion is the annual cost of divorce to U. S. businesses

Marriage Stew The Case for Marriage – by Linda Waite, Ph. D. Married People …. • Are better off financially • Live longer • Have better mental health • Are safer • Have better sex

Why Did We Get Married?

I. Ingredients that Spoil A. Distorted Perception of Who We Are: 1) You Never Marry the “Right” Person… Because marriage profoundly changes us 2) You Never Marry the “Right” Person… Because we are spiritually broken Rom. 3: 23 -24

True Vows I promise to love you as much as the Chicago Cubs and not hold your black and white striped dress against you. From this day forward, I will listen to all of your complaints about the mall if you say them during the off season and promise to retire my baseball cap and face paint for public outings. I will love you in sickness and in health, from this day forward, until death parts us or you become a White Sox fan. I, Davis, choose you, Christy, to be my wife in front of our friends and family gathered here. I promise to love and cherish you throughout the good times and bad times. I promise to try and remember to put down the toilet seat and to replace the toilet roll when it finishes. I promise to remember this special day with love and roses. I promise I will love you always.

Marriage Vows "When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. " – George Bernard Shaw Do You Remember Yours? What Do We REALLY Sign Up For?

I. Ingredients that Spoil B. Distorted Perception of What Marriage Is: 1) Self-Fulfillment… Necessary to Make Me Happy 2) With My “Soul Mate”… My Perfectly Compatible Spouse 3) Declaring Present Love… Instead of Promising Future Love

Destructive to marriage is the self- fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become “whole” and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person. We never know whom we marry; we just think we do. Or even if we first marry the right person, just give it a while and he or she will change. For marriage, being [the enormous thing it is] means we are not the same person after we have entered it. The primary problem is learning how to love and care for the stranger to whom you find yourself married. Tim Keller-”The Meaning of Marriage”

II. Cookbook Instructions A. We Are Meant for Relationships 1) The Very Nature of God is Relational Relationship of the Trinity (Mat. 28: 19) 2) We Are Made in His Image … Designed for Relationships (Gen. 1: 27) So What Happens When We Don’t Live In Relationship With God or Each Other?

Why Can’t We Be Friends? Good companions enjoy spending time together in conversation and recreational activities. As a general rule, spouses should be able to look forward to the next time they will be together, rather than dreading it. Time spent enjoyably together builds and strengthens the marital relationship. Conversely, the lack of companionship in a marriage can produce deep loneliness in both spouses.

II. Cookbook Instructions B. Marriage Is Meant for Companionship What is a Friendship? 1) Constancy… Prov. 17: 17 a. Not “Fair-Weathered”… Prov. 14: 20; 19: 4, 6, 7 b. Staying With You … Prov. 18: 24

II. Cookbook Instructions B. Marriage Is Meant for Companionship What is a Friendship? 2) Transparency & Candor a. Encourage & Affirm …Prov. 27: 9; I Sam. 23: 16 -18 b. Critical Feedback … Prov. 27: 5 -6 c. Make Me Better … Prov. 27: 17

II. Cookbook Instructions B. Marriage Is Meant for Companionship What is a Friendship? 3) Spiritual Transparency a. b. c. d. e. Honest Confession … James 5: 16 Calling You Out… Romans 15: 14; Gal. 6: 1 Pushing Me … Daily … Heb. 10: 24; 3: 13 Offer & Ask Forgiveness … Eph. 4: 32 Reconcile … Mat. 5: 23 ff; 18: 15 ff

II. Cookbook Instructions B. Marriage Is Meant for Companionship What is a Friendship? 4) Spiritual Constancy a. b. c. d. e. f. Bearing Burdens … Gal. 6: 2 Thru Thick & Thin … I Thess. 5: 11, 14 -15 Sharing Goods- Lives …Heb. 13: 16; Phil. 4: 14 Honor & Affirm … Rom. 12: 3 -6, 10 Call Out Gifts … Prov. 27: 2 Build Thru Study & Worship … Col. 3: 16; Eph. 5: 19

III. Fresh Ingredients A. Be A Friend… A BEST Friend Proverbs 2: 17 … “Special Confidant” B. Share the Load Galatians 6: 2 …

IV. Cooking § Sit down with your spouse and describe your own unrealistic expectations. Ask yourself which characteristics are appropriate and worth working towards, and which are unrealistic. § Ask your spouse to give you one way you can enhance, not a cripple, your self-esteem. What does he/she want you to do today? § Read your wedding vows again together- ask God to help you live them out this week. § Practice gratitude towards each other this week… "I promise to show you, every day, that I know exactly how lucky I am to have you in my life. "

IV. Cooking § Play together this week- spend time doing something enjoyable- without conflict § Cook a meal together this week- working at time together- working together § Ask your spouse how you could become a better friend? § Read the verses here together this weekask God to help you live them out with each other

IV. Cooking § Before saying good-bye every morning, find out 1 thing each is going to do that day § At the end of the day, have a 15 min. low stress reunion conversation about the highs and lows of their day § Give genuine appreciation every day to each other- at least 1 x

Assessment: Change Your Perspective What would your marriage look like if you changed your perspective/total paradigm shift to: • Eternal • Training ground • Hard work & disciplined • Companionship focused • Responsible for your result • ? Something completely Different ?