Three Areas to Shore Up in Your Marriage

To “shore up” means to prop up areas that need greater support and strength. We all need strong underpinnings for our marriages.

Where do we need to start?

First, begin with your relationship to God. Nothing will be more important in your marriage than understanding who God is and what He wants you to do with your life.

Think of how differently you react and live when you live in close relationship with God.

God told us to love one another and to do unto others as we want done to us. These are basic underpinnings of the Christian faith. When we grow in our relationship with God we quickly begin to grow in our relationship with others.

God’s Word tells us to be kind, compassionate, and tenderhearted. It tells us to forgive others as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:32).

The more we stay close to God the more we learn about living together as family.

Second, shore up your tenderness factor. Sometimes it’s easier to be kind to others than to the people we are closest to.

A dear friend of mine who is now with the Lord once told me that her sons wanted to know why she didn’t talk to them like she did to people on the phone. She said she began to understand she treated strangers better than her own children.

We almost always do. We need to shore up our kindness and tenderness toward the people closest to us.

Remember, your kindness toward your family will rebound with kindness toward you.

Third, shore up your communication. Marriages thrive on good communication; they dry up and die without it.

Make every effort to learn to communicate.

Learn to choose your words wisely. Be careful of the tone of your voice. Be swift to hear and slow to speak (James 1:19).

Try your best to not only hear but to understand. One of the basic needs in life is to understand and to be understood. When we feel that we are understood, we often can handle any problem. When we don’t feel understood almost everything becomes a problem.

Good marriages take time and effort. Give your marriage your best in each area.

Each day I publish a new devotional concerning Christian living and pastoral leadership. If you would like to receive each one of these in your inbox each morning, please sign up at WaylonBailey.com.

Share this post

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on email

2 Responses

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *