For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. –Genesis 2:24
Recently a friend requested that we discuss unity in marriage in our blog. As I was turning the idea over in my mind, it clicked that “unity” is the basis of God’s design for marriage. God melds two unique individuals together to make one unit. Society tells us that it means a shared living space, family, and maybe a shared bank account. However, in God’s design to spiritually unite you to your spouse, it takes a willingness to put someone else above yourself, which is quite the undertaking since most of us are all self-centered by nature. This week we will explore unity, our marriage vocabulary word of the week and five ways we can nurture it in our marriages.
1. Togetherness and communication
At the basic level of unity of any type, there is togetherness or time spent together. However, this needs to be quality time (much like Mitch talked about on Saturday). This is time that you appreciate sharing with your spouse. While watching TV together is not bad (we do it fairly often), turn it off once and awhile so you can catch up on one another’s lives. Mitch and I have decided that though we like to watch TV during dinner, Sunday morning breakfast and Tuesday night dinners are times that we will turn it off and simply have conversation together. We have enjoyed some wonderful bible studies and discussions over dinner since making this decision. True togetherness will allow for communication, and communication is 100% necessary to create unity. It aides you in staying on the same page and enables you to make decisions as a couple. Unity in decision-making will be a blog unto itself someday, but it requires listening to your spouse, and at times, putting their needs above your own.
2. Putting God’s will first and spiritual unity
One of the most beautiful aspects of marriage is the spiritual unity. To have unity, you choose to lay your soul bare before your Creator and the person to which he has bonded you. One specific way that you can build this spiritual unity is to seek God and his will together. Mitch and I have found that we feel so much closer and more united after praying together or reading God’s word together. The weeks that we suffer from the most conflict we often look back and realize that we let busyness rob us of our prayer time or bible study time together. When that happens, we allow Satan a foothold and opportunity to whisper selfish desires to us. His will also leads us as we make difficult decisions together. Petitioning God in prayer and seeking his will in challenging matters and major life decisions helps us to be more united as we make the choices with more clarity and confidence.
3. Supporting each other
This one may make you say, “no duh Nathana!” Nevertheless, I have seen so many couples and families fractured because the husband and wife seemed to be playing for different teams. Support is more than just being there for your spouse, it means backing them up, standing up for them, and working together. This applies to varies aspects of marriage and family. A very wise man once told Mitch and I that one of the things that damaged his first marriage was their lack of unity over how to raise children. I think this is one many of us can relate to, even if we don’t have kids. I remember knowing that my chances were greater if I asked my mom for a shirt or dress I wanted than my dad, but I knew that if I wanted to go over to a friend’s house, my dad was the one I should ask. It is a minor example, but if parents are split over how to discipline and raise children, it has the potential to lead to major conflict within the marriage and family.
Supporting each other also applies to other areas of life such as financial decisions. Mitch and I were worried about this area during our engagement. We knew that we had slightly different values when it came to money management and statistics show finances as a major contributor to divorces. To resolve our worries, we discovered that we had to dream together and set goals and then mutually translate those into what our financial decisions would look like. For example, we both want to lead as debt free of lives as possible; however, we now have student loans to start paying back. We decided that we would like to have them paid off within the next ten years. So now, we plan accordingly when we make our budget each month. Whenever possible, we put more money than required toward paying them off. This idea of goals leads into my next point. . .
4. Creating common goals that help you have “one mind”
Christ calls his believers to strive to be of “one mind”; I think it is equally important for us to be of one mind with our spouse. How can we have this one mind? It begins by setting and striving for common goals. When two people are working on a common goal, they tend to accomplish more than when two people work on two different goals. It is common sense. A house divided won’t stand and a married couple divided will face many more issues. Don’t miss interpret me as saying that you will and must always agree with your spouse. If you have been married for even a week, you know that to be false. However, we need to communicate through the differences until we can come into an agreement that will be the foundation of common goals.
5. Physically joining together as one flesh
Hopefully this is the fun one for you! (In case you are still in the dark, I am referring to sex.) Sexual hang-ups are frequent and may come from numerous past or present issues, but never forget that God’s design for sex is good and for our enjoyment within marriage. If you are married, joining together in sex is not dirty, rather beautiful. Read the Song of Songs and you will see that God created us to join together physically and to love it! Please, don’t neglect this aspect of your marriage. It will help you grow toward unity, not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally. Sex is not a purely physical interaction; it involves your heart and soul. Some great books, that we will hopefully do book reviews for soon, are Sheet Music by Dr.Kevin Leman, Sex God by Rob Bell, and The Sexually Confident Wife by Shannon Ethridge. These are all Christian authors that take a Biblical approach to our sexuality, especially our sex life within marriage. I highly encourage you to check them out, even if your sex life is stellar!
As much as I hope and pray that these five ideas will help move you toward unity in your marriage, I know that there are many other aspects to unity as well. You may still have question such as “What does it look like?” and “How exactly do my spouse and I work toward a unified front when we see things so differently?” In the future, we will revisit this idea in more depth. But for now, please, share your input in the comments so that Mitch and I and others can be edified in our journey toward greater unity!
Questions:
1. Are there other ways that you believe a couple should be united?
2. When do you feel most unified with your spouse or what helps you be unified?
3. How do you and your spouse work through differences to reach unity?
Thank you for reading and have an amazing Tuesday!
Nathana
Recently a friend requested that we discuss unity in marriage in our blog. As I was turning the idea over in my mind, it clicked that “unity” is the basis of God’s design for marriage. God melds two unique individuals together to make one unit. Society tells us that it means a shared living space, family, and maybe a shared bank account. However, in God’s design to spiritually unite you to your spouse, it takes a willingness to put someone else above yourself, which is quite the undertaking since most of us are all self-centered by nature. This week we will explore unity, our marriage vocabulary word of the week and five ways we can nurture it in our marriages.
1. Togetherness and communication
At the basic level of unity of any type, there is togetherness or time spent together. However, this needs to be quality time (much like Mitch talked about on Saturday). This is time that you appreciate sharing with your spouse. While watching TV together is not bad (we do it fairly often), turn it off once and awhile so you can catch up on one another’s lives. Mitch and I have decided that though we like to watch TV during dinner, Sunday morning breakfast and Tuesday night dinners are times that we will turn it off and simply have conversation together. We have enjoyed some wonderful bible studies and discussions over dinner since making this decision. True togetherness will allow for communication, and communication is 100% necessary to create unity. It aides you in staying on the same page and enables you to make decisions as a couple. Unity in decision-making will be a blog unto itself someday, but it requires listening to your spouse, and at times, putting their needs above your own.
2. Putting God’s will first and spiritual unity
One of the most beautiful aspects of marriage is the spiritual unity. To have unity, you choose to lay your soul bare before your Creator and the person to which he has bonded you. One specific way that you can build this spiritual unity is to seek God and his will together. Mitch and I have found that we feel so much closer and more united after praying together or reading God’s word together. The weeks that we suffer from the most conflict we often look back and realize that we let busyness rob us of our prayer time or bible study time together. When that happens, we allow Satan a foothold and opportunity to whisper selfish desires to us. His will also leads us as we make difficult decisions together. Petitioning God in prayer and seeking his will in challenging matters and major life decisions helps us to be more united as we make the choices with more clarity and confidence.
3. Supporting each other
This one may make you say, “no duh Nathana!” Nevertheless, I have seen so many couples and families fractured because the husband and wife seemed to be playing for different teams. Support is more than just being there for your spouse, it means backing them up, standing up for them, and working together. This applies to varies aspects of marriage and family. A very wise man once told Mitch and I that one of the things that damaged his first marriage was their lack of unity over how to raise children. I think this is one many of us can relate to, even if we don’t have kids. I remember knowing that my chances were greater if I asked my mom for a shirt or dress I wanted than my dad, but I knew that if I wanted to go over to a friend’s house, my dad was the one I should ask. It is a minor example, but if parents are split over how to discipline and raise children, it has the potential to lead to major conflict within the marriage and family.
Supporting each other also applies to other areas of life such as financial decisions. Mitch and I were worried about this area during our engagement. We knew that we had slightly different values when it came to money management and statistics show finances as a major contributor to divorces. To resolve our worries, we discovered that we had to dream together and set goals and then mutually translate those into what our financial decisions would look like. For example, we both want to lead as debt free of lives as possible; however, we now have student loans to start paying back. We decided that we would like to have them paid off within the next ten years. So now, we plan accordingly when we make our budget each month. Whenever possible, we put more money than required toward paying them off. This idea of goals leads into my next point. . .
4. Creating common goals that help you have “one mind”
Christ calls his believers to strive to be of “one mind”; I think it is equally important for us to be of one mind with our spouse. How can we have this one mind? It begins by setting and striving for common goals. When two people are working on a common goal, they tend to accomplish more than when two people work on two different goals. It is common sense. A house divided won’t stand and a married couple divided will face many more issues. Don’t miss interpret me as saying that you will and must always agree with your spouse. If you have been married for even a week, you know that to be false. However, we need to communicate through the differences until we can come into an agreement that will be the foundation of common goals.
5. Physically joining together as one flesh
Hopefully this is the fun one for you! (In case you are still in the dark, I am referring to sex.) Sexual hang-ups are frequent and may come from numerous past or present issues, but never forget that God’s design for sex is good and for our enjoyment within marriage. If you are married, joining together in sex is not dirty, rather beautiful. Read the Song of Songs and you will see that God created us to join together physically and to love it! Please, don’t neglect this aspect of your marriage. It will help you grow toward unity, not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally. Sex is not a purely physical interaction; it involves your heart and soul. Some great books, that we will hopefully do book reviews for soon, are Sheet Music by Dr.Kevin Leman, Sex God by Rob Bell, and The Sexually Confident Wife by Shannon Ethridge. These are all Christian authors that take a Biblical approach to our sexuality, especially our sex life within marriage. I highly encourage you to check them out, even if your sex life is stellar!
As much as I hope and pray that these five ideas will help move you toward unity in your marriage, I know that there are many other aspects to unity as well. You may still have question such as “What does it look like?” and “How exactly do my spouse and I work toward a unified front when we see things so differently?” In the future, we will revisit this idea in more depth. But for now, please, share your input in the comments so that Mitch and I and others can be edified in our journey toward greater unity!
Questions:
1. Are there other ways that you believe a couple should be united?
2. When do you feel most unified with your spouse or what helps you be unified?
3. How do you and your spouse work through differences to reach unity?
Thank you for reading and have an amazing Tuesday!
Nathana
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