Hold that Sword!

I often sit across the desk from couples both young and old, married for years or just recently. They come to me with a plethora of marital problems or stumbling blocks and many expect an immediate return for their visit. They come in expecting that I will take one side over the other. The only side that I am to take much to their chagrin is that of God’s. After allowing them time to lay their cards on the table, to lay out their issues and sometime to vent, I begin by letting them know that with God there is hope. More often than not one of the major issues that people have is that they lack communication. They may talk to each other but they fail to communicate with each other. As a matter of fact, by the time they come to me, most of the communication between many couples is in the form of yelling or strait out accusations in nature. Here is a couple that had come together with visions of grandeur. They had come together as two in love ready to board the ship called marriage and sail off into the sunset of life. Now after a dose of reality they are at whit’s end. The glamour of marriage had manifested itself into something that neither party had expected. They come face to face with the reality that the person they thought that they married was in fact just a front to please the other. Now committed to one another in the commitment of marriage all they let the façade fall and the real personalities are manifested back into shapes of laziness, anger, bitterness and selfishness. The pristine ship that sailed off into the sunset now sails into my office resembling something like the Flying Dutchman from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” Sails worn and tattered, the hull showing signs of being dashed against the rocks. The gunnels damaged because of enemy fire and sitting heavy in the water due to the excess baggage it now carries. The once happy crew is now bitter and sad after facing many hours of rough seas, heavy winds and tumultuous storms. Instead of a couple they now look more like two people who cant wait to find a safe harbor in hopes to abandon ship. Couples come in with their own agenda in mind saying that they communicate but resemble Captain Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones at then end of “At World’s End”. Earnestly attacking each other with the goal to win and at the same time the ship is in dire straits as it is caught in a Maelstrom (a very powerful whirlpool). I am of course using this film sequence as a metaphorical picture of this couples marriage going down “the proverbial toilet” because they fail to recognize the damage that they are doing to each other or to the marriage. When we argue with someone it is your full intent to win. No one ever gets into an argument to lose it. We are in it to win, no matter the cost. We are to win even to the harm of the one we are arguing with. All too often couples will argue with one another causing undue harm to one another because they have to win, refusing to give ground, even to the one that they love. The Bible clearly tell us in Ephesians 4 that we are to speak to each other, “…’Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,’ for we are members of one another.” (Ephesians 4:25) In the eyes of God a couple is one, made one flesh in marriage and we are on in Christ as well. We must remember that this verse reminds every couple that we must speak to each other. Next we find in Ephesians 4:15 that Paul says that we are to speak and that we are to do so in love, “…speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ.” Speaking the truth in love means no hurtful or cutting words. Remove your selfish desires and motives remembering that words can and do cut deep. Who ever coined the words, “Sticks and stones may break my bones (but words will never hurt me,” must have lived alone somewhere because words truly do hurt. So when we do speak we are to do so in love, we do so lovingly. Finally, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.” (Ephesians 4:29). So before you go charging in like Captain Jack, prepared to hack and cut away at your partner that God tells us that this type of communication is NOT allowed. If we follow His rules of communication we find that we can get our point across in love and at the same time save the relationship with our spouse.