Making Love Last a Lifetime
Colossians 3:5-10, 12-17
Many have voiced their opinions on marriage throughout the years. Here are a just a few:
Mae West- “Marriage is a great institution. I’m not ready for an institution yet!”
Comedian Joy Behar “I want a man in my life, but not in my house. I’m a very busy woman. I want him to come in, hook up the VCR and leave.”
Greg Gutfield- “According to research in Social Psychology Quarterly, if you can stay married for 35 years, you’ll be just as happy as you were on your honeymoon. For the time in between, consider a trial separation.”
Rodney Dangerfield said “We sleep in separate rooms, we have dinner apart, we take separate vacations- we’re doing everything we can to keep our marriage together!”
How can couples make their love last a lifetime? With the divorce rate skyrocketing, I believe that is the most significant question married couples and our nation faces today. When I stand before couples as they say their wedding vows, all of them intend to stay together for a lifetime. Not many couples say, “I’m going to give you the best five years of my life.” Most people believe this is going to be a forever commitment. And yet, some of the people who have stood before me are doomed for failure. There is very little chance they have what it takes to make it last a lifetime. I try to help them realize that through pre-marital counseling. But in almost 20 years of ministry, I have found the vast majority of couples do not come to the pastor to see if they should get married but instead just to get married. Even more concerning is the fact that they may spend 100’s of hours planning a wedding and have done little to nothing to prepare for a marriage.
The good news in all of this is that most I have married have the potential to last a lifetime. As we discovered, every relationship starts with romantic, passionate love and sexual desire and that fire is still burning when they meet at the altar. But what do you do when those fires burn down. So what happens 5 or 10 years down the road when they wake up one morning and say, “I don’t think I love you anymore.” And why is it that more than 50% of all marriage are ending in divorce today? Can that be changed or even avoided? What do you have to do to make love last a lifetime? To answer that question, you have to first ask, “What are the reasons behind why so many marriages are failing? Studies have found 9 reasons. First is a lack of quality time spent together. Second is lack of communication. Third is a lack of shared interests. Fourth is a lack of romance and affection. Fifth is a lack of forgiveness. Sixth is a lack of appreciation and respect for one another. Seventh is a lack of change and spontaneity. Eighth is a lack of sexual fulfillment. Ninth is a lack of shared faith.
William Harvey in his book, “Give and Take: The Secret of Marital Compatibility” talks about those feelings you had when you first fell in love: the passion, the excitement and the sheer shrill of it all. He points out what it took to make those sparks fly. It took a great deal of time. Remember how all of your friends were mad at you because you were no longer spending time with them and instead were spending it with her or him? You may even remember your parents complaints about the lack of time you gave them. Your were head over heals in love. You hung on every word they said. You listened intently. Even you guys did this. You were interested in what she had to say. You cared about her and you were all over each other. So what happened? Why did you stop? That’s what it takes to get the sparks flying but when we get married, they disappear. We think it’s good enough to rent a movie and share a bowl of popcorn. In a recent survey it was found that persons who were very unhappy in their marriage went on a date less than once every six months. If you went out on a date once a year with someone, what is the likelihood you would have gotten married? If you never spend time talking to them, would you have ever gotten married? In courtship, we sell each other a bill of goods. The sparks start flying and somewhere along the way, we stop. Is it any wonder why we fall out of love? But the problem is deeper than that.
We have in our relationships the propensity and tendency to cool things down over time. It is not simply the fact that once we get married, we quit doing all of the things we did when we were dating. That’s a piece of it. But there’s a bigger issue. According to our Scripture today, Paul says it has to do with who we are on the inside. He says, I want you to put aside all of the things which are a part of your earthly nature. Everywhere else in the New Testament he calls that sin. Paul is asking us to lay aside the sin in our life. We need to understand that probably the number one disruptor of marriages is sin. I’m not just talking about the big sins like infidelity, I’m also taking about your every day garden variety sin, like those words which prick the heart of our loved one or putting ourselves ahead of the needs of our spouse or harboring anger against our spouse. These things comes naturally to us because we are all sinners.
Paul says, Here are some things which can destroy you. Sin destroys a marriage. It destroys your soul and it destroys your relationship with each other. Paul lists the following. First is sexual immorality. He also mentions impurity and lust. Few things can destroy a marriage quicker than unfaithfulness. Second is greed. Over the last three decades, the average household has increased its debt load. Americans have become accustomed to financing purchases large and small. Many Americans have been financing their newfound wealth by either borrowing against their home equity or covering monthly living costs by using credit cards or money saved earlier. This causes stress in the home. The number one cause of divorce is finances. Third is anger or rage. There is such a thing as holy or righteous anger but few of us practice that kind of anger. Usually that is anger targeted against things opposed to God. Instead, we get angry over things which are much more personal and self-serving. Fourth is malice or ill-will toward others. We do this when we cut them down with our words of hurt them intentionally. Fifth is filthy language. Many of us have a difficult time with what we say and the way we say them. Filthy language causes distance and pain in relationships. Sixth is lying. Trust is the basis of love and any marital relationship. Without it, love fails. Seventh is self-centeredness. We believe the world revolves around us. When we were dating the world revolved around our spouse. But we can only keep that up for so long. We do that while the passion fires are really hot, but there comes a point where we slip back into the person we really are. That’s one who is focused on me. With a self centered mentality, it becomes almost impossible to maintain a marriage that can last a lifetime.
How can we change that? Paul teaches us that not only can it be changed but it is changed by the power of God. You can try as hard as you want to become someone who is not a sinner. But it’s like a leapard trying to change its spots. You can’t do it. But God specializes in changing us. That’s what the Gospel is all about. Jesus came to deal with our sin and change us from the inside out. Paul goes on to say, “You’re not like that anymore. You have become a new person in Christ.” You are now clothed with compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience. You loved because of what you have allowed Christ to do in you. This is why we become Christians: to invite God into our lives to change us and remold us into His image and to save us from ourselves and our sins. That’s why when we become deeply committed to God, we are free to love our spouse the way we loved them at the beginning of our relationship. That happens as we allow Christ into our lives and our marriage.
Christian marriage is about two sinners saved by God’s grace and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit to serve God and to bless one another. When you’ve do that, it’s hard to mess it up. But there are some specific things we can do to make our love last a lifetime.
First is a commitment to the marriage vows. Divorce should never be a word we are willing to use in our home. We dedicated ourselves to marriage before God. This is the second most important commitment of your life, after making your decision to become a Jesus follower. No matter how difficult life and marriage is, we must be willing and committed to stick it through. Three doctors studied more than 6000 couples and found that 3000 ended in divorce. They concluded, “There may be nothing more important in a marriage than a determination that it shall persist. With such a determination, individuals force themselves to adjust and accept situations which would seem sufficient grounds for a breakup, if continuation of the marriage were not the prime objective.”
Second is communicating and sharing. A study was done a few years ago which tracked the amount of communication in a marriage. The first year in a marriage the husband and wife spent almost an hour each day in one on one communication with each other. By the third year, it had dropped to 35 minutes a day. By the fifth year, 15 minutes a day and by the seventh year less than 7 minutes a day. Is it any wonder when couples divorce they say, “We just grew apart.” That’s not true! They stopped talking with one another. Couples need a significant amount of time talking to each other every day, sharing their feelings, their disappointments and their hopes and dreams. They need to get beyond just reporting the events of the day.
Third, really listen to your spouse. Studies have found that not really listening to your spouse is one of the fundamental mistakes couples make. We have a tendency to let our minds wander, to interrupt our spouse or be impatient when they are telling a story. We need to not only listen to the words of our spouse but the meaning behind the words. Nothing is more comforting, validating and assuring than to know you’ve really been heard. Fourth, demonstrate your affections regularly. In other words, practice meaningful touches. Affection in the form of touching is not only a preliminary to making love, it is the language which speaks more eloquently than words. Meaningful touches are the language of passion. Don’t leave the house without kissing your spouse every morning. Say “I love you” several times a day. Hug each other constantly. Hold hands. Cuddle. It’s hard to be distant emotionally when you’re close physically.
Fifth, develop common interests. Work on projects together in the family and on the house. When you are raising children, those common interests often focus on children. That’s OK but it cannot be the be all and end all. You must intentionally go beyond that to find other things which will bring you together. Find common interests to help you build a sense of team. I had a friend several years ago who told me she started playing golf so she could spend more time with her husband. She gleefully told me they were playing a different golf course each week, all because they were sharing something new together. I could tell it was building a new bridge in their relationship and marriage as they shared new experiences together.
Sixth, cultivate passion. Chemist Neil Warren has studied what he calls the love secrets of couples with model marriages. His most significant find is surprising. Chemistry between two people is responsive to mental and emotional processes over which we have tremendous control. That’s right. You can make chemistry happen. If you don’t feel the flutter in your heart for your spouse that you once did, if the magic is gone from your relationship, don’t panic. You can change that by investing in your marriage and relationship to one another. Being married doesn’t mean the fun has to end. Successful couples realize it takes hard work to rekindle the romantic love but it can be done. Plan romantic dinners, take trips out together, even if it’s just to the city or the Gulf Coast. Call your parents to baby sit and spontaneously go somewhere for the weekend. Surprise each other with little gifts. Give flowers to one another and that means you too women. Date at least once a month. Studiers have found that marital happiness is highly correlated with the amount of time spent together so do it if not for your marriage then for your children.
Seventh, set goals for your marriage. If you don’t know where your marriage is headed, you will drift and change directions as the wind and waves do. You have got to be intentional in what youm want from one another and what you want fro your marriage and family life.
Eighth, grow together spiritually. A lack of intimacy can often be traced to a lack of spiritual vitality. One study showed that spirituality ranked as one of the top characteristics of strong marriages. When two people have a spiritual hunger or spiritual journey together, they become soul mates. In other words, spirituality is the soul of marriage. Without spiritual roots, couples are left with emptiness and superficiality that prevents genuine intimacy.
Ninth, cherish one another. The most important element of romantic passion for both husbands and wives is to feel special. They need to know they are cherished. Not only do they want to feel sexually attractive to their mates, but they want to know they are appreciated. Compliments feel good, both to give and receive. Make sure you complement your spouse on a regular basis. Say thank you to one another for at last two things each day. Just as marriage is a calling and gift from God, so too is your spouse. This is the person God has provided for you. So look at your spouse as a gift from God and begin to treat them as such. Grow to cherish your spouse in thought, word and deed by expressing it to them.
A column is Ann Landers read: “Dear Ann, I can’t believe people still write to you and say they are stuck in a relationship. When you choose to marry, you accept the obligation to do everything in your power to make the relationship work. If there is abuse, that is a legitimate reason to get out. Otherwise, marriage is a commitment to stay and work out whatever problems exist. We are a spoiled society, and spend too much time focusing on what others are not doing for us. My husband and I have been married for 15 years. I don’t expect flowers and romance. He’s not the type and I knew this early on. I know he loves me because he works hard every day to provide for his family. In return, I try to make him feel special. Most wedding vows include the word cherish and if your readers would cherish the small things in their marriages, it just might lead to a fulfilling relationship.”
