Building Better Love : The Mission of Loving WellSample

The Challenge

Marriage can become a lovely tool used to mold us into living better and loving better when the perfect love of God becomes a part of our story. He has a purpose for your marriage, and I promise you that it has nothing to do with what you originally thought. This is why I love Proverbs 16: 33 so much.

“You can roll the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.” (NLT)

The Lord’s plans for your marriage are deeper and fuller than you could even imagine, and He desires to order your steps and guide you into His will for your heart and your home. We must cling to this truth because, in marriage, we’re going to have moments when we just aren’t sure. We’re going to face aspects of life that we didn’t plan for or expect. We will experience characteristics and habits in our husbands that we didn’t see while we were dating them and we will even see sides of ourselves that we were unaware of until marriage. All this leads us to love better because it’s through these unknowns that God’s hand brings about His plans.

On our own, our best attempts fall so short of God’s glorious abundance which is ours through Jesus (Ephesians 3: 20-21). As women who desire to love well, we must remember that we have been given the power to love in the moments that aren’t perfect, by leaning into the unfailing love of Christ, which is perfect. He has promised to complete a good work in us (Philippians 1:6) and He is using every aspect of our lives, including our marriages, to bring about this good completion.

There will be many lessons, lots of messes, confessions, and personal transformations that we must endure as we seek The Lord and become changed by Him in pursuit of commissioning a beautiful life of love. It’s a process in our lives and it’s also a process in our marriages. It’s in these growing and becoming seasons where transformation takes place to propel our marriages and mature our love beyond self-centered ambitions and momentary feelings. Admitting that we need to grow more and become more is vulnerable and scary, but this, my friend, is true strength and when we allow our walls of self-preservation to come crumbling down, we enable our hearts the oxygen it needs to beat and breathe. The exposed cracks of our humanity will then allow us to peer into the hearts of our husbands and permit them to gaze into ours, as well. The challenge is in choosing to do so.

Prayer

Dear Lord,

I thank you for the gift of my marriage and I entrust it to you today. I know it's not perfect, but your love is and it's your love and I desire to see displayed in my life and my marriage daily. I want to build my marriage on your love and I want to cultivate a marriage that is a reflection of your heart. Please continue to teach me grace and truth and obedience as I live my life and grow in grace with my husband. Lead us into a marriage that bears much fruit for your glory and our good. I pray that we love as you loved us and that our union is an example for the world to know your love for them.

In Jesus name,

Amen