Take a minute to picture your marriage as a garden.
Ask yourself, what does our garden look like?
Is it full of beauty and life, flourishing and well-kept, or has it become something overgrown and untended?
Just as a garden needs to be maintained regularly if it is going to remain vibrant, marriage can be viewed in the same way. It takes hard work, regular attention and care if it is going to be all that God intends. The point is not to become proud if you are doing well or feel hopeless if you are struggling but rather to clarify and communicate with your spouse about the vision you have for your marriage and how each of you can work together towards a great harvest.
As the garden has certain elements that either let it flourish or die, so it is likewise with our marriage. The condition of the soil is the key for any garden to thrive and in Mark chapter 4, Jesus uses the analogy of different soils to show the condition of our hearts, and how the state of our hearts determines whether we bear fruit in our lives and in the purpose of this blog, our marriage. The hard ground, rocks and weeds are all conditions of the soil and if these are present they can prevent us from cultivating a healthy marriage.
An example of weeds and rocks can be unfulfilled or unmet expectations, normally arising because of a lack of communication, which leads to resentment and discouragement. This can lead to state of disconnecting with your spouse.
A good way to start uncovering some of the conditions of the soil is by asking questions of ourselves and one another. So to start you off:
- Is there any brokenness in my life that is impacting my partner?
- Is there a skill I could learn that will help remove potential rocks?
Part of the good soil is growing in understanding of your partner, how they process situations and information and how they feel most loved. These are good places to start if you are looking towards a good harvest. Some questions to begin a conversation could be:
- What makes you feel loved?
- What brings you joy?
These questions and conversations with each other allow you both to move towards preparing your marriage for a good and lasting harvest. Some further things to consider could be:
- Look at what season your marriage is in e.g. newlyweds, young children, teenagers, empty nest and ask couples within our Christ-following community who are in that phase (or who have been there) for counsel.
- Ask your spouse how the two of you can become more of a team. Doing things together adds such value to any relationship.
- Seek adventures to challenge each other and spur one another on in areas you want to grow in.
I think sometimes our own lives and often our marriages become more like overgrown gardens: the longer we don’t tend to them, the more overgrown they become and it gets harder and harder to tend to them and make them life-giving and fruit bearing.
The beautiful thing is that Jesus doesn’t leave us to work on our marriages in our own strength, the Gospel leads us into second chances and in Him there is always hope. He supplies the grace and the motivation to get stuck in and start cultivating your marriage towards one that bursts with life and has a lasting harvest.
If you are asking God to move a mountain in your marriage, don’t be surprised to find that God provides you with a shovel. It’s time to get to work!
PRACTICAL TIPS TO APPLY:
- MARK OUT SOME ALONE TIME BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR SPOUSE THIS WEEK
- GET RID OF DISTRACTIONS
-turn off phones, computers, televisions etc
-be in a quiet place
- ASK EACH OTHER THE FOUR QUESTIONS HIGHLIGHTED BELOW
What makes you feel loved?
-What brings you joy?
-What can we do together more that would make you feel more of a team with me?
-What is one deep desire/dream that you haven’t fully expressed to me, or that you think I have forgotten?
- LET YOUR PARTNER ANSWER THE QUESTION FOR TWO MINUTES WITHOUT INTERRUPTION, THEN YOU MUST REFLECT BACK TO YOUR PARTNER WHAT YOU HEARD THEM SAY
-communication becomes like the child-hood game “broken down telephone” when we assume we know what our spouse means without reflecting what we heard them say and then allowing them to clarify if we heard incorrectly.
- THEN YOU ANSWER THE QUESTION FOR TWO MINUTES WITHOUT INTERRUPTION AND LET YOUR PARTNER THEN REFLECT WHAT THEY HEARD YOU SAY
Blog by Wally Gerstmeier.
Wally and his wife Shirley have been married for over 30 years. They are on full-time eldership at Life Changers, and are also periodically released to travel into other local church contexts around the country and abroad equipping church’s mainly in the area of life-style evangelism, and often into strengthening marriages. They are passionate about reaching the lost, discipleship, the prophetic and seeing the local church equipped to be who they were created to be.