trying too hard

Many marriages have been saved by this simple statement; “This is normal.” It is normal for marriage to stretch people beyond what they think they can take. It is normal for a man and wife to feel intensely angry toward each other. It is normal for a man to feel helpless, overwhelmed, seeing no hope of things getting better. It is normal for a couple to doubt that they will ever have the warm feelings again. If your marriage made in heaven becomes more like a hell on earth, it’s okay. It’s normal. Let the conditions be what they are. The conditions are not the relationship. God still has both of you safe in His arms. Stop worrying about the bad conditions, and trust in the One who is Lord of your conditions, who with one breath could take away all your problems, who could calm the storm, who could dump a pile of money on you.      God is behind all the positive things that bring a couple together, but He also brings the bad things that create tension and trouble and heartache between them. He brings the sunshine and the rain. A couple that recognizes this will have strength to endure the hard times, but a couple that does not see God’s hand will break apart. Matt 5:45      Some people prefer to say that God brings the sunshine and the devil brings the rain. Certainly, I imagine the demons would enjoy tearing apart what God put together, but even so, they must get permission from God. Whether or not Satan has something to do with it, Jehovah surely does.      Why would the Lord bring trouble to that which He made? He does so to see if these two people really trust Him. He already knows, because He sees into their hearts, but He wants to see the truth brought to the surface.      Suppose a man avoids discussing a touchy topic with his wife, and he goes to lengths to avoid it, but one day he sees himself in a head on collision with the issue that he tried so hard to avoid. He actually feels “set-up,” and to his surprise he might realize that he was set up. The Lord arranged a situation in which the man could not avoid this point of disagreement. It’s God’s way of telling the man, “I want you to discuss this topic.”      Years ago in college I met a Christian girl whose parents had divorced. Her father told her that at some point he had stopped working on the relationship, and that’s what made it die.      I agree that God holds a man and wife responsible to work on their marriage, but it is not their efforts that hold it together. Tell me, you people who say that a husband must work in order to hold his marriage together; if a man loves his wife, does he not love her as a gift, and if so, how can she be a gift if he keeps her by his efforts? This beautiful gift of marriage that God gave him, does he intend to keep it by his own efforts? If so, then it really is a chore rather than a gift. Galatians 3      People accuse each other of not working hard enough. I’ve seen many relationships crash and die, and I see the opposite. It’s not that people don’t try hard enough. Make a note of this. They try too hard.      For the one who works, his works count as debt, but for the one who does not work, but trusts the one who justifies the ungodly, his faith counts as righteousness. The man who tries harder gets himself deeper in debt, because the harder he works, the more he denies that his wife is a gift. Romans 4:4, 5      If you’re on the wrong program, you don’t solve the problem by working harder. You get on the right program. You entrust your marriage to the one who brought you together.      A bad marriage is an opportunity to show the hope we have in Christ. When the situation is impossible for us, God will get the credit for saving it. If you could hold it together by human effort, you would get the credit, but here it becomes obvious that the credit goes to God.