A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. –Proverbs 14:30

This Sunday, Mitch taught the teen bible class over the latter part of James 3. He discussed with the teens what bitterness is and how to recognize bitter wisdom. Since Sunday, the subject has been on my mind.

Confession time: the sins I struggle with most are bitterness and envy. Bitterness resides on the inside--away from prying eyes. Nonetheless, it cannot stay suppressed long. . . It either leaks out or explodes. Bitterness (as Mitch defined it Sunday) rots a person from the inside out. At times, I have been tempted to think, “Well, it’s not like I am doing this or doing that [insert things I ranked as worse] . . . .” but let me tell you, the Bible has A LOT to say about avoiding bitterness. I could not study the Bible without God convicting me that I needed to rid myself of bitterness.

So what rots your bones? What feeds bitterness in your life? Is it envy and pride? I know that is what feeds mine. Is it a past hurt? Are you refusing to let God move you toward forgiveness? Is it challenging circumstances that have entered your life?

Fortunately, I have not struggled with bitterness within my marriage. I have, however, within a couple close friendships. It is a poison to relationships. You can disguise the taste for a while; but, eventually it will seep out and mutilate, if not destroy, the relationship you have allowed it into. If this relationship is your marriage, you need to rid yourself of the bitterness before it is too late.  

How? Here are some antidotes that have helped me.

1. Confess.

Get the weight off your chest. Not just to God. Talk to your spouse or friend.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. – James 5:16

2. Forgive.

Move toward forgiveness. It does not happen overnight. Let God heal the wound and take the pain. You have choose to forgive.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. –Ephesians 4:30-32

3. Live by the Spirit.

The “fruit” of the Spirit is what we allow the Holy Spirit to bring about and produce in our life. It is less about our efforts and more about our surrender to God’s will.  

 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. –Galatians 5:22-26.

4. Seek Peace in Your Inner Spirit.

I am guilty of seeking artificial peace. I want everyone to get along and be happy. Smoothing over situations is a skill of mine. However, this is false peace. God calls us to be peacemakers. This means more than to simply get along with each other. It means to help others find peace in their spirit. It is less about the external and more about the internal. Peace is the opposite of bitterness. If your spirit is at peace, bitterness will not plague you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. –John 14:27

If you are struggling with bitterness, memorize and mediate on Philippians 4:6-8:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

-Nathana

Questions:
1. Are there other antidotes you would add to this list?
2. Have you ever been the recipient of someone’s bitterness? How did it leak out and affect your relationship?

    Today Nathana and I wanted to share a shared experience with you. As most of you know, we have been in the process of relocation for quite a while now. We can proudly say that this relocation process is now complete! We have new phone numbers, license plates, drivers licenses, professions, and a new home. But something that stayed the same was the fact that these new things were shared with each other. Nathana was by my side the entire time, and I with her. As we entered this new life together, hand in hand, we experienced some growing pains. This came from several points of stress but they all involved the inability to be truly intimate with each other. So here are our shared experiences based on this fight for our hearts.
    I would first off like to state that there was never a moment that we were in crisis as far as our marriage was concerned. We were always fully dedicated to getting through all things and we were fine throughout it all. With that said, a relationship without intimacy is just a friendship. It is (in my humble opinion) the one thing that continues to drive a couple together. Relationships that lack closeness forces the couple to work off of a more basic and shallow level. It makes the connection plain, distant, and uninteresting or what I like to call “White Bread Love.”
    So what was the thing that mostly robbed me of my ability to feel intimate with my wife? Mainly our proximity to others. The main issue for me was the fact that for about 6 weeks we didn’t have a place that I could feel safe enough to let down my walls and bare my heart. In between our home in Nebraska (being a mess of boxes and junk), visiting family for the last time, moving over 1,400 miles, searching for a new apartment, and making that new apartment a home, I had a hard time feeling secure and comfortable. My life felt out of place and the fibers of my foundation were being cut. I just didn’t feel like allowing myself to be vulnerable and open when everything else felt so scary.
    The good news is that I was able to fight this as we went along. Some of the weapons that I used to fight against insecurity were very basic, yet effective. One of those weapons was just the dedication that I had to my marriage. I knew that these times would pass and I wouldn’t allow them to injure our relationship in the long run. Another was making sure to take the time for dates with each other. We were in the midst of unpacking into our new home and I just couldn’t handle the clutter anymore. So we went to one of our new favorite places, ironically titled “The Place”. Just having a breather from the chaos helped our conversation. Finally, and most importantly, the reinstitution of Bible study. Being in the word together did wonders towards feeling at peace with our new surroundings...

Mitch

    Familiarity, closeness, understanding, relationship, and confidence are the words that appear when I plug “intimacy” into my online Thesaurus. These are essential ingredients necessary to any deep relationship. They are also true for our relationship with God. What robs me of intimacy spiritually, in friendships, and my marriage is one word: busyness. My task-oriented brain entangles me with my agenda and to-do lists to the point that I shove prayer time, husband time, and friend time to the future where I will have theoretically completed all that I think I should. When I do this, I sacrifice familiarity, closeness, understanding, confidence, and relationship.
            During our transition time and move, I know there were times that failed to prioritize Mitch over all the pressing details. Now that we are settled and I am finding ways to show my love and prioritize his needs, I see how much I let our marriage and many friendships suffer because of draining busyness. Intimacy takes effort and energy. Some days, both Mitch and I were so drained physically and mentally that we just wanted to turn off our heads and relax. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it took the place of conversation, joint prayer, and the things that keep us intimate.
            I am very proud of the transition we made to living and working in Arizona. Nevertheless, if I could do one thing differently, I would try to take some time out of every day, even if just for 15 minutes, to pour love into Mitch and feed our marriage. I know that the future holds a lot of busyness: family, ministry, friendships, full time jobs, housework, and probably much more. Life doesn’t slow down; at least it won’t for a while. That is ok. God will strengthen us for the tasks ahead; however, we have to let him into our life to prepare us. We also need to uphold our marriage and important relationships as priorities that take precedence, no matter what comes our way.

-Nathana
 
Questions:
1. What are things other than busyness that might challenge a relationship’s intimacy?
2. How do you work to prioritize your marriage, even when you are busy and drained?

    Life has been a crazy ball of emotion for us over the past several months. After learning that I had an possibility to do youth ministry full time in Arizona, my mind has been running wild. It’s been full of ideas about events, devos, classes, service projects, and how to build relationships. It’s been engrossed with how to move all of our stuff 1,400 miles southwest, where to put it, how to organize our lives over again, and what our new normal would be. My heart has been so dedicated to trying to say goodbye to loved ones and allowing others into it. In a nutshell, life has been chaos (in the best way possible). So seeing as our lives have been in a constant state of transition and chaos, I would like to share a basic list of things that I have learned. Some are very basic; some are expanded; all are true and fully embraced.

• Tell others just how much they mean to you. No matter how hard it may be or what it will mean for your relationship. It is healthy to open your heart to others. Especially when it is to people that you care deeply about. It will probably turn out that they care deeply about you as well!

• When things are comfortable it’s very likely that things are also stagnate underneath. Essentially, change is good.

• When moving, mark your boxes well. It helps when unpacking them...

• Set realistic goals for yourself. Unrealistic goals don’t make the task any better. It will leave you feeling unsettled, aggravated, and small. Goals really do make or break situations. They are what moves us closer to the future. If you can take that journey one step at a time instead of leaps and bounds, it will make for a much smoother ride.

• Listen to music that you haven’t listened to in a long time on road trips. It makes miles go by faster. Audio books are great too. (Alone time in the car is also a great chance to pray.)
  

• Meeting new people can be a challenge. Perhaps the largest thing that I’ve learned recently is that people really do have more in common with you than what you would think. You can find shared experiences, likes, interests, etc much easier than what you might think!

• God is good all the time. This may be a cliche but it’s so very true and important. His goodness is hard to comprehend sometimes, but it doesn’t make it any less good!

• Stretching yourself also involves stretching your marriage. Whenever you change and grow, your relationship is going to shift. It’s important that your marriage is more moldable like clay than solid like concrete. The easier you can shift, the more you will grow!

    Like I said, some of those aren’t exactly deep but it’s a rough sampling of what I have been learning over the past months. Thank you so much for bearing with us through our months of transition. We are dedicated to serving through this blog as consistantly as possible. Know that we are thinking about you and praying over your marriage as often as possible!

Question

• What is something that you have learned over the past month or so? (this could be really deep or just a great recipe!)

In Him,

-Mitch

Would you believe that there is an extremely popular full time job that people sign up for all the time that offers no hope of vacation or retirement? Moreover, the only compensation they get is love, and sometimes they do not even receive that. Thousands of people spiritually and legally commitment their lives to this profession. The institution of marriage: a job in itself.
    Now, please don’t misinterpret me! Marriage is a beautiful covenant and worth every ounce of work and sweat; however, the reality is that it takes work and dedication. There are no vacations from being married and for many people there is not even retirement: “’Til death do you part!” Too many people enter into marriage thinking about the love they will receive from their spouse, instead of the time and energy they will put into loving and serving their spouse.
    This week I read 1 Corinthians 7, which caused me to reflect on the aspects of marriage that are not always positive. In this chapter, Paul offers some instructive commentary about marriage such as “The wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife” (vs. 4). This is great stuff! Yet, he throws a curve ball (at least it was for me). He states that he wishes all men could be single and thus more focused: “I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife—and his interests are divided” (vs. 32-34a). At first, I was almost offended, but then I realized it was common sense. A single person would have a lot more time and energy to dedicate to the Lord’s work without allotting for family time. Marriage is not effortless. Paul honors it, but he is also honest about the downsides.
    This past month, Mitch and I have been transitioning down to Arizona where he is now working as a Youth and Family Minister. He has a lot to handle with getting oriented into a new job, settling into a new home, and all the many tedious details that come along with it. This could be stressful; yet, he has shown me his love through it all. I have not felt neglected in the least. It has honestly amazed me to see his dedication to being a good husband first and foremost.
    Though he may find his attention divided at times, as Paul points out in 1st Corinthians, I think that there is much to be said for the example of a healthy marriage. It speaks volumes. Teens need to see what it looks like to be a godly husband. I remember wanting to see more healthy and happily married couple in the church while growing up. Many couples come off as tired and resigned instead of happy, healthy, and in love. Within ministry, I’ve heard wives or children of ministers’ talk of feeling neglected. Too often have I heard about wives not wanting their husbands in ministry because of the time commitment. In all honesty, it scared me and made me sad that this was so often the case. Fortunately, it does not have to be the norm! I have been blessed to see Christian couples, in and outside of ministry roles which uphold a model of what a healthy marriage looks like.
    Marriage may be a job lacking in vacation time and retirement funds, but it is one I am willing to take on. If you are a disgruntled worker, know that there is hope. Don’t resign yourself legally or emotionally from the task of loving your spouse. Hopefully, you can find some encouragement here and in God’s word.

- Nathana

P.S. Check out a video glimpse of our apartment on the vlog page! Also, Mitch will be posting another on Saturday to show the place all put together.

Questions:

1. How do you make sure that you are loving your spouse and prioritizing them in your life?
2. Have any tips on making the profession of marriage feel more like a privilege than a job?
3. Is there anything that we can be praying about?