Harmony in marriage is very important if you are going to make it work for the long haul. Yes, there will be phases in your marriage where you may feel like both of you are not on the same page. Through those times you have to fight the desire within you to leave. Sometimes the grass that may look greener on the other side is just fake grass. Don’t fall for that or you may end up regretting it.
What does God think about harmony in marriage? This is EXACTLY how he feels about harmony:
Mark 10:6-9 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh’;so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
You can’t get any clearer than that with how God feels about harmony. He expects both the husband and wife to become one in marriage. That is as harmonious as you can get. That is like both of you on your mark in the dance the “Tango”. That takes works and dedication to pull the Tango off. Your marriage is the same way.
When not in harmony, the Tango will look horrible and both people will be so off rhythm that they will not be able to make the dance work. But when the Tango is working for both of them, it looks like something magical. That is how your marriage is supposed to be. When one moves so does the other, so they fit together. Becoming one is not easy, but it is worth it. When you and your spouse are on the same page, look out where you marriage can go. You will see miracles made throughout life because of your marriage.
When Sandy and I first married, we were so on page people thought it was cute. We did everything together. If I moved one way, she moved with me or vice versa. After my mom passed away, we started to lose some of that connection because I went back to what I have always known and that was drugs and alcohol. My addictions had me again. It was frightening, especially for her, she had never been around any of that in her life.
After a few years into our marriage, we were starting to lose that harmony and that started to lead to a loss of passion. Passion develops when the two of you are together on the same page. When you aren’t, it is easy to lose that passion. That was starting to happen with us.
Sandy did her part to try to keep us in harmony during those rough years. If she was like most women, she would have left, because the harmony was leaving our marriage. What we had at the beginning was leaving. When that happens, society tells you to leave and that it is over.
Sandy just didn’t believe that. She was committed. She was so committed that she didn’t listen to her feelings and loved me anyway through those addictions. She took her frustrations to God every night pleading with him to heal my heart. That day finally came on Dec. 26th, 2007 when I got completely sober. As of this writing, I am going on 9 years sober and life together now has been amazing.
This has been a process, it hasn’t just come back together because God healed my addictions. It has taken years of growing back together to get us where we are today. I am telling you, you can get that harmony back because we are proof of that. We did it and so can you. We are more on one page today than we have ever been. We realize now why God wants harmony in marriage. It has been so awesome to get to where we are today. I want to point you in a few directions that helped us get here.
It was a few years after God healed me of my addictions that we found the church that God wanted us to attend. This was a huge pivotpoint in our marriage. We had no idea how significant this would be. We were still growing back together but I think we had stagnated at this point when God led us back to church.
I know what you may be thinking, I don’t have to go to church to have a strong relationship with God. My spouse and I used to say the exact same thing. We would listen to a few sermons online and that’s it until we finally felt that God was telling us we needed church and which church we should go to. You can go to my main blog to read that story on how God led us back to church.
The very first day we tried the church God led us to, we also went to a small group. We were all in and we were ready to be all in. It is crazy how much we grew from that first small group we were part of. We were with them for the first 1-2 years of being at our church and it was amazing.
Also in this time period, we started not just reading the bible but also reading books that help, listening to several sermons per week online and going to our church. These were preachers that we believed in. A couple we have now been listening to most weeks for 5 years. We have been at our church for over 6 years as well.
We go to every marriage seminar that we can and listen to every marriage sermon that we can. Today we listen to 1-2 hours a night of marriage sermons, communication sermons, and bible studies. We probably also listen to 3-4 sermons throughout the week on top of that to stay connected. This is all outside of our church. We would never use all of this to replace the local church because the local church is where you find community. The local church is where you will see many changes happen within you when you are all in.
Between 2010 when we started back at church to today, we have grown so much together. The reward is the marriage we have today. You may be thinking that is a lot of work. My question to you is, who ever told you marriage would not be work?
Marriage is a lot of work but when done right can become one of your strengths. Sandy and I feel that not only is our marriage our strength, but communication is one of our strongest strengths. You see, if people would treat their marriage the way they do their career then it can become a strength too. Marriage and communication can be studied and learned just like your career. If you can study many hours a week for your career then you should be able to do the same for your marriage. When you start studying marriage and communication, it starts to become a passion. You will start to see the two of you becoming one.
You will begin to see a closeness, that has never happened in your marriage before, start to happen. You will start seeing both of you healing together. Remember, in marriage it is not marrying the right person as much as becoming the right person.
I found that over time Sandy felt comfortable and vulnerable enough with me to open up about how she felt through those rough years. She started opening up on how I really treated her back then. Many times she told me things that I didn’t realize or even remember. She finally understood that I was getting it and I was starting to understand her more and more though all of this.
We truly have a marriage where it is complete openness and you can’t have a marriage in harmony without openness and vulnerability. We are proof that you can drag your marriage to hell and still come back with Heaven in marriage. It can happen, but it all has to start with both of you committing to God and his word, even if you don’t agree with God sometimes. You have to realize the Bible is our guidepost on many fronts, but especially marriage.
If you will start learning daily about each other, growing in Christ together through God’s word, listen and go to everything that will help your marriage, you can literally change the whole direction of your marriage. This will not happen overnight, but in time. By starting today, you can do something positive for your marriage.
Try to be patient with each other and give each other room to grow. If Sandy didn’t give me that room, we probably would not be married today. We wouldn’t have reached 14 years of marriage now and would not have Lil’ Chris who is now almost 5 years old. I owe so much to my amazing wife Sandy for standing in the gap when I could not because of my addictions. When I was weak, she stayed strong for me. In the end we came back together stronger than ever!
That is what harmony is all about. By doing just a few things everyday, you can bring blissful harmony back into your marriage! Don’t settle for an average marriage when God wants you to have an Inspired Marriage!
Living an Inspired Marriage,
Chris Benton
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