Emptied: Living a Poured-Out MarriageSample

I recently heard someone change the old idiom “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” to “The grass is brown on both sides of the fence.”

I laughed at this simple truth because while it could be true of many things, it is certainly true of marriage.

I’ll always be proud of the work Wynter and I chose to put in to make our marital lawn (if you will) green. I’ll always be thankful to the gracious God who met us in our imperfect brown lawn of marriage and empowered us to make it green one blade at a time.

Some days, it looked greener to me, and some days, it looked browner. Some days, the same was true for Wynter.

But we kept working and praying for greener grass.

It wasn’t always this way. We came into marriage thinking our relationship would always be healthy. That it would grow naturally. We thought little about what it takes to pursue, cultivate, and maintain a strong marriage. Funny enough, Wynter thought I would be more like Richard Gere from Pretty Woman, and my picture of what Wynter would be like was my mother.

We each brought our own expectations to marriage—and with them, our own brown grass.

But God’s Word changed our minds.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2

We all enter marriage with misguided understandings of what marriage is and what’s needed for growth.

But God’s Word is clear on what growth looks like: stewardship and trust.

To take ownership of something is to steward. Stewardship is taking responsibility. It’s tilling the soil and spreading the proverbial fertilizer. It’s dealing with the past hurts, anger, resentment, bad habits, and lies we believe. It’s emptying ourselves of all of it, one situation and one day at a time.

Trust is the reliance on God. It’s submitting our lives and our marriages to Him. It’s seeking Him in prayer and in His word. It’s saying, “God, whatever You want me to do, show me. Whatever You need me to do, tell me,” and then waiting for the rain. Waiting for Him to show up with the answers to those questions and to fill you with what you could never possess on your own.

When the rain of His power and help comes, with a heart of stewardship you obey. That cycle continues day after day and season after season until you find yourself seeing God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will coming about in your relationship.

No matter how brown the grass is today, may God give you the vision to see the green that exists and provide you with the strength to steward your lawn and trust Him for rain.

May we all have our minds renewed that we may see God’s will being done in our lives.

Lord God, grant me the strength to continue working towards growth. Give me the trust to seek only You for direction.

In Jesus Name, Amen.
 

LIVING POURED-OUT TODAY

• When you think about your marriage, what color grass do you see?
• What expectations did you bring into your marriage that may be contributing to a brown grass outlook? Ask God what you can do to transform your perspective.
• Identify one area of your marriage that needs “watering,” then give it some attention. Maybe it’s communication, finances, or schedules.