Marriage Is Not That Hard

01 Jul Marriage Is Not That Hard

I cannot forget when we first got married, how my husband always told me that we do not have to go through what people called the first hard years of marriage. He said other people’s experiences and most especially the word of God has given us the benefit of not having to go through unnecessary difficulties in marriage. He often said that if we follow God’s word from day one we would not have to “teeth” in marriage. And now after almost thirteen years of marriage, I wish I had taken him more seriously.

I have come to discover that most of the struggles we go through in our marital relations is rooted in the fact that we enter marriage alive, alive to our flesh and forgetting that the flesh profits us NOTHING (John 6:63), alive to flesh as it keeps yelling to us to think of ourselves instead of our spouse, to satisfy ourselves even if it means disobeying God and displeasing our spouse.
We all need to die!

Dying to the flesh means dying to rebellion; that spirit that fights all the time to make us do what our flesh wants against what God has instructed. It means choosing to do marriage God’s way even when our flesh, pride and ego get wounded. Though our flesh has already been subdued by our rebirth in Christ, we must be prepared to keep whipping our flesh every day as we take every step to Honour God in our marriage until our flesh falls and practically dies.

We suffer because we transgress. We transgress because we refuse to die. Marriage is not as hard as it seems, it only is to those who refuse to obey the commands concerning marriage.
…the way of transgressors is hard… Proverbs 13:15

Our focus as couples then should be on how to work hard on the flesh to KILL it! I hope you see my point. And it does take daily work, hard work, minute-by-minute, moment-by-moment, praying, reading the Bible, listening, acting and trusting. When we become dead, feelings of anger, bitterness, un-forgiveness and all those negative emotions will no longer find place in us, no matter the pressure. Rather The Holy Spirit gains liberty to manifest His fruit in us and in our marriage.

The bulk of the hard work in pursuit of success in marriage would then be to focus on “dying”. We must train our spirit to take charge of our flesh, we must read and fill our spirit with God’s word as we practice daily obedience to God Jesus is The Word, we kill the flesh, we “die” when we do this.

But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Romans 13:14

This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5:16

We must work on dying daily so that we can keep our spirits alive to The Holy Spirit as He continually guides and leads us in the way to go. When we gain this understanding and make the choice to follow God’s instruction, refusing to feed our selfish nature, we will discover that marriage is not that hard.

Good understanding giveth favour: but the way of transgressors is hard. Proverbs 13:15

Is/was  your marriage hard, are you dying?

Copyright© Ugochi Oritsejolomisan 2013