iMarriage

We started a new series today at church called iMarriage. As usual, these ideas all came straight from my Pastor. Y'all didn't think I was that smart, did you? Ha!

Our Pastor said that marriage to men is pretty much like cars to women. Women want to just have a car that works, but we don't really want to know how it works. We just want it to run and we're happy. Men are the same way with marriage. They just want it to work and they're happy. They don't want to have to work on it or discuss how to make it work any more than us women want to talk about how the car works. As he said though, sadly lots of people just want to drive their marriage until it breaks down, and then they want to trade it in for another one. That was a great analogy, I thought!

We all have ideas and dreams about how marriage is going to be. We have it all mapped out beforehand. These are our desires. We each bring these into the marriage. The common denominator in this is a big "I". The "I" is what each of you wants. It's the "I" want it to be this way or that way. When those desires that you brought into the marriage are transferred to expectations, the dynamic in the relationship instantly changes. Then the marriage "I's" will instantly collide.

When the "I's" collide, we can either choose to leave, conquer, or compromise. Leave is pretty self-explanatory. Conquering means one of you chooses to just be conquered and give in to the other's expectations. This works for awhile, but eventually the one being conquered will have lots of stress being who they aren't really meant to be and will break eventually. It's very easy for a person to be "me", but very stressful to mold themselves to be who the other person expects them to be. Compromising is still all about I. It's about compromising to what each of you expects from the other. The Bible wants us to be committed to each other, not just be committed to "the marriage."

When we are just committed to "the marriage", the relationship moves from a covenant to a contractual obligation. The first thing that will go is romance and intimacy. It will be peaceful, but not love. Contracts create a debt/debtor relationship. We can justify what our spouse owes us, but romance leaves. It lacks expressions of gratitude. When we expect something, we aren't grateful for it when it's done. It also lacks acts of service. If you complain about something when your spouse doesn't do it, but you don't thank them for it when it's done, you may have an imarriage. Expectations steal the romance. When you are doing things out of love for your spouse, then you will have intimacy.

So, there is one foundational question you must ask and that answer will tell you what your expectations are of your spouse. The goal is to move that from an expectation back to a desire. You can't move forward until you answer this question. It will mean dreams realized, instead of expectations just being met. And that question is:

What does your spouse owe you?

I'll be back next Sunday with the next part of the series!

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So, after church today we went and ate at The Cracker Barrell. We never go there, for some reason, but it was really good and good prices too. I think we'll go back more often! They have some really cute stuff in their little shop too. Anyhow, it was a fun day. I'm super tired today after everything yesterday and then church this morning. I need a nap! LOL! Instead, I'm off to Target to get some necessities! Hope everyone has a great week!!