Wake Up, Look Up

Hello everyone, thanks for listening to Wake Up,

Look Up, a podcast where we connect events

happening in real time to the gospel of

Jesus Christ.

I'm Zach Weirach.

And in today's episode, we ask the question,

is your marriage declining?

This is based on an article I read

this week by social scientists who were noting

a phenomena that happens in any relationship, but

especially marriage, over time.

And that is that marriages gradually decline.

Without intentional work, your marriage regresses.

It doesn't progress.

Maybe a better way of saying it is

without intentional work, your marriage doesn't tread water.

It begins to drown.

It's not because of you or who you

are.

It's just true in human relationships.

There are a couple reasons for that.

First, negativity is more powerful than positivity.

So we just tend to see things in

a negative light and we tend to talk

about them in a negative light.

So the longer you're with any person, the

more you're going to see that you feel

negative about and the more you're going to

say your negative thoughts and feelings about that

thing.

The other side of that is that destructive

words live with us longer than constructive words.

So the reality is that on a day

-to-day basis, someone you're around for a

long period of time, you might say five

really nice things and one really hard thing,

and it's just human nature, they're going to

hold on to that one really hard thing.

Now you multiply that by a decade of

marriage and you end up with a lot

of wounds.

And the truth is all of us who

are married know you bring into your marriage

your insecurities and your fear.

So if over time, we get more negative,

we say things that are more negative, we

hold on to things that are negative, and

we were already insecure and afraid, it's really

a recipe for disaster.

And what the social scientists said is that

men and women tend to process this differently.

Women share their negativity, often speaking criticism, and

men withdraw from negativity, often retreating inwardly.

And so marriages don't make it, or they

last, but in this state where the woman

feels like she's talking and no one's listening,

and the man feels like she's always talking,

but he doesn't really care.

And that might, I hope not, but it

might describe your marriage currently.

But of course, we don't just want to

let you know marriages decline on their own.

We want to call you to something better,

something higher.

That's because that's what the Bible does.

The Bible has an incredible vision for your

marriage.

Two things the Bible says that marriage does.

First, marriage is supposed to lead to your

sanctification.

Ephesians 5 tells us that husbands loving their

wives and wives loving their husbands is part

of God's design to make us holy.

So the consequence of butting up against our

spouse's, let's say, shortcomings, the things we're negative

about, is to see them as opportunities to

speak love and truth and grace.

When they butt up against our shortcomings, for

them to speak love and truth and grace

into our lives so that as a result,

what might have been an opportunity for destruction

actually becomes an opportunity for construction.

Your marriage isn't ultimately about your day-to

-day, minute-by-minute satisfaction.

And that's good news because no relationship with

a human brings you minute-by-minute, day

-by-day satisfaction.

Your marriage is about what God is doing

in and through your life and in and

through your spouse.

That's why the second purpose of marriage is

to actually picture the gospel.

The God who loves us.

The God who sees our shortcomings and overcomes

them with love and grace.

Marriage is meant to show what love can

do between two sinners under the umbrella of

God.

Which is why I have to tell you

that if you're a Christian and your marriage

is declining, without even knowing your story, I

can tell you that's because your relationship with

Jesus Christ is declining.

Because the reality is that Christians are supposed

to first drink deeply of their own relationship

with Jesus.

The one who sees our shortcomings and yet

always brings grace.

Always brings love.

Always speaks truth.

Always speaks promises of construction.

What he will do.

What he is doing.

What he has done.

And when we drink deeply of that, the

reality is when we turn to what's negative

about our spouse, we have learned the skill

of speaking the gospel into shortcomings.

If we don't drink deeply of the love

that Jesus has for us, then when we

turn to our spouse, we will only have

our internal reservoir of truth and grace and

hope and love.

And you and I both know it doesn't

take very long for that reservoir to run

dry.

Is your marriage declining?

Maybe.

But it doesn't have to be.

Run to Jesus.

Let him speak truth and grace into your

shortcomings and ask him while he's doing it

to teach you how to speak truth and

grace to your spouse.

We are meant to live marriages that are

eternally meaningful.

Why would we settle for anything else?

This episode of Wake Up Look Up was

produced by Marcus Cunningham and Holly Andrews.

Our topic researcher is Shanna Young.

This episode was directed by Rima Saleh.

Our podcast coordinator is Holly Andrews.

Our production manager and audio wizard is Marcus

Cunningham with tech and engineering support from Matthew

Adel and Landon Hall.

I'm your host, Zach Weirach.

Join us for the next episode of Wake

Up Look Up.