Trisha and I moved to Noblesville, Indiana in 2002 to start a church. Our desire was to reach people who were far from God, and help them find their way back to Him.  We quickly learned through this experience that we LOVED helping people find their passion, and their giftedness. It was exciting to see someone discover how their passions and gifts could make an eternal difference in this world. We developed a process in our church that didn’t leave people on the sidelines, but equiped and unleashed them to contribute to God’s bigger vision for their life. This process was critical to the life, health and growth of our church. We never considered it could and should be applied in our marriage.

Restoration Principle #5- God has given you and your spouse passions, gifts and talents that if discovered and applied, in your marriage, will drastically increase your joy in your relationship.

Before Trisha and I were separated, one of the most consistent arguments we had centered around meals. Trisha was constantly stressed out about cooking. She wasn’t good at it, and she hated it. She would do her best to meal plan, grocery shop and prepare meals for our family. She would bust it all day taking care of our kids and prepare dinner for me by the time I got home. I would usually come home later than I promised and dinner would be cold. It would be Mexican or pasta or chicken or…..well that about sums it up…one of those 3 things.  The truth is this was a serious area of tension and stress in our relationship. Trisha constantly felt unappreciated and defeated. I felt like it shouldn’t be that hard to plan, shop and prepare food for our family.

Everyday, we spent time identifying gifts and abilities that others had to serve the in the church. We wouldn’t ask a person who hated kids to serve in the nursery. We wouldn’t consider allowing someone who couldn’t sing to lead worship. We would never ask someone to teach unless they had the gift of teaching. But we functioned in our marriage with a totally opposite philosophy.

When we were separated and began dating again, we spent a lot of time talking about the things in our relationship that caused the other pain. This subject came up early in a conversation over dinner (at Red Lobster, not that Trisha cooked). We were talking about what gave us life and what drained life from us. She just began to pour out her heart and share with me how much this was life-sucking to her and how my response over the years had made her resentful and bitter and defeated. It was a huge wake up call for me. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal…but it was a huge deal for her. That night, I told her that after I moved home, I would assume all cooking responsibilities…she never had to worry about it again. A month later I was able to move home and begin to make good on that promise!

Here is what we discovered…I love cooking. I love learning how to make new things. I love getting up early on Saturday morning and making breakfast for our family. I love that my boys have seen their dad find a passion in serving and contributing in a way that builds up their mom! My boys now love cooking with me!  There was an exponential increase of joy in our home from this one discovery. But we didn’t stop there…one of the things that Trisha learned is that I really don’t enjoy mowing the yard…but she does. So I cook about 90% of our meals and she mows our yard about 90% of the time. As we have engaged in these activities, we are both doing something that we like doing, and taking something off of the plate of our spouse that they don’t like. It is a huge win for our family.

The truth is that 80% of our pre-separation roles are still the same. But, by talking about our gifts, passions and talents, and then reassigning 20% of our roles, it has made a HUGE difference in the quality of our marriage and family. This conversation should be had by every married couple alive. Because here is the cool part: Where it starts is in the daily tasks that each of us are responsible to accomplish to make our family function…but where it goes from there are bigger dreams, greater visions and larger passions that God has given us as couples to experience and accomplish together.

Do you know what your spouse is passionate about? Have you ever asked the question to your spouse “Are there things in the daily life of our house that you do that give you life? Are there things that suck life out of you? Are there things that I could begin doing around our house that would free you up to be more of whom God has called you to be?” Obviously someone has to take out the trash, someone has to change the dirty diaper, someone has to do the dishes. But your marriage will be instantly improved if you can discover how you can orient your marriage relationship around the God-given gifts, passions and talents of one another.

I am confident that there will be some people that read this next principle and think that I am being legalistic; that I am going to extremes and that I am not in touch with culture. Some of you will read this post and you will say that I just became irrelevant to the world in which we live. Some of you will think…“He isn’t as strong as me, he isn’t as wise as me, he isn’t as _____________ as me.”  ”He doesn’t get me.”

As tempting as those thoughts are, I hope that you take some time to really think through this principle and how it might play out in your life, because we both believe to take a step away from destruction and toward restoration, this principle is essential.

When Trisha and I were separated, I began to go to counseling and a few weeks later, Trisha joined me. One of the first assignments I was asked to consider and engage in by our counselor was to fast from TV for the duration of our separation. I was confident we could have things put back together in a week or two, so fasting from TV didn’t seem like a big deal. As we have mentioned before, we were separated for two months and God showed up, and used that time to awaken some things in my heart that I had failed to recognize and deal with.

Restoration Principle #3: Without a sold out commitment to purity of heart, our marriages will naturally drift toward destruction.

Philippians 4:8 says “ Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-think about such things.”

The truth about me is that I struggled with sexual sins. Those weren’t the only sins that I struggled with, but those were the ones that ultimately destroyed my marriage. Here is what’s wild: I taught this passage on Sunday morning. I quoted this passage to guys I met with that had pornography addictions. I often shared this verse with friends I played basketball with that couldn’t stop cussing. I knew this passage…but didn’t apply it. Well, I guess I applied it to the point that it felt comfortable…but not when it conflicted with CSI Miami, or Grey’s Anatomy. I never quoted it when I was trying to talk Trisha into watching a rated “R” movie that “only has one sex scene that we can fast forward through.” I never broke out this verse as I was walking into the movie theater to watch Wedding Crashers. I knew this verse was truth, but didn’t take seriously the downside of not applying it to my life.

During the time that I fasted from TV, God really broke my heart with this verse.  I spent so much more time in His word than I had probably ever spent, and came to terms with the fact that I was a hypocrite when it came to Philippians 4:8. He showed me how compromise and justification had become second nature. Once I admitted to the struggles I had with pornography and lust, I began to see how some of the things I was filling my mind with were being used by the Enemy to point me and even our family in that direction. I had blown it off and thought I was above it, and honestly, judged people in my church that didn’t watch the shows that I watched or went to the movies that I went to…”they must not be as strong in their faith as I am.”

Wherever sin lives, intimacy dies. That is true in your relationship with God, and it is true in your marriage. But the good news is that wherever intimacy lives, sin dies. I don’t know what this looks like for you…really that is between you and God. But for us, we watch very little network TV. We attend very few movies these days. I guess that is a price that we have chosen to pay…but the payoff is huge. We have shared this principle with couples, and they say… “So, no Office? No How I Met Your Mother? No Grey’s Anatomy?” No…not for us. We feel like being sold out to purity in our thoughts, in our hearts, in our marriage and in our family means saying no to things we know violates this principle.

A few months ago, my 12 year old son had some friends over. They were going to play X-Box 360 for a while then they wanted me to take them to the movies. They started talking about different movies to see, what movies some of them had seen and what was good and what wasn’t. I just began praying that God would give me the wisdom I needed to help my son navigate the situation. Here is the cool part…we have talked so much about this principle of purity and how to protect our hearts…I didn’t have to say anything. My son went to the computer, went to the PluggedIn web site and reviewed all of the movies that were playing. He then told his friends the two or three movies that he would feel comfortable attending…end of discussion. I know it won’t always be that easy…but that is just one instance of “whatever is pure, whatever is holy, whatever is right” paying off in a big, big way.

Maybe there is some unidentified destruction in your heart and marriage because of a lack of purity? I have been there. It is so hard to admit…even harder to deal with and not justify. What would your marriage look like if you really took Philippians 4:8 seriously? How could intimacy grow as sin was put to death in your life and in your marriage? This post won’t win any popularity contests…but it has been and continues to be one of the most essential steps in our move from destruction to restoration.

Restoration Principle #2: Your willingness to confess and pray will determine the depth of healing and restoration God will bring to your marriage.

James 5:16 says it like this “Confess your sins to one another and prayer for each other that you might be healed.”

This principle played a critical role in our ability to move from being on the brink of divorce to God healing and restoring our relationship over the past 3 ½ years. More specifically, Trisha and I leaned into this principle this week on two occasions that made a huge impact in the quality of our time together on vacation.

On a vacation a few years ago, we were sitting at an outdoor café, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at the ocean. But something wasn’t right. I asked Trisha if she was okay. She said that she was fine. A few more minutes passed and again, I just felt like I needed to ask. I said, “Trisha, are you sure everything is okay?” Right then, she had two choices. She could have cut short the restoring work God wanted to do in her and in our marriage by saying again that she was fine. Or she could choose confession. We have seen over and over again that James 5:16 is true and it is right and it is powerful. She began to tear up and just said “I have an ungodly amount of anxiety in my heart right now, and I don’t want to be an anxious person.” There was a part of her heart that was fractured. Anxiety had taken root in her heart and had begun to hold her prisoner. She could have not confessed what she was feeling…and it would not have destroyed our marriage…but a degree of intimacy would have been lost. By confessing her heart condition to me and trusting me with it, communication started, walls were broken down and I was able to pray specifically for her in this area. I can’t make my wife less anxious…but God can. I was able to ask God to do something in her that I do not have the ability to do.

Although I (Trish) confessed my anxiety I didn’t fully explain where it was ALL coming from. The day before we had hit the beach and as we were lying on a comfy lounge chair Justin was “out” as we baked in the sun. I looked-up and noticed two girls just off to the side of us were completely topless and I became panicked as to what to do. Throughout the day there would be a woman walking along the beach topless. I just wanted to cry. Here we were in paradise but I felt like we were trapped in hell! So I had to make a decision…. tell Justin when he woke-up about what was going on and figure out what to do together or just be mad and think the worst of Justin.

The next day we were sitting by the pool (you had to keep your top on at the pool… my mom on a lighter note said I was caught in a “boobie trap” LOL). I looked at Justin and said, “In this moment, I need an honest answer from you, and I don’t care how brutal it is…I just need it be the truth.” He agreed to answer me honestly so I asked, “I want to know how you are doing in the area of lust as women walk around here half-naked. Are you struggling to keep your mind pure, and is there anything I can do to help you?” Huge decision for Justin: confess or hide?

He told me there have been times where he felt tremendous tension in his heart to take a second look at someone, but knew that it was wrong and that it was lustful. He told me that it isn’t a battle that you fight once and win, but it is a daily decision to recognize and fight. He said that I was already doing things that help him in this battle of lust like praying for him, sharing physical touch and affection, sexual intimacy, knowing that I find him attractive and have a desire for him. When these “action steps” are in a healthy balance then I know I am doing all I can to help him combat the temptation of lust and the rest is up to God! It is when I choose to be angry and hold a grudge because he does struggle and withhold myself in areas that are helpful to him, our relationship starts to break down.

What we realized later that evening was God was restoring a brokenness in us that had been created by years of hidden lust, unconfessed struggles and shame. This restoration hinged on our willingness to be honest and vulnerable and hear one another’s heart and pray for each other.

Here is my question to you today…is there anything you are NOT willing to talk to your spouse about? Is there anything that you are withholding? You may not be on the brink of divorce, you may not have the same issues that Trisha and I have, you may have a “good” marriage. If you can’t confess everything to your spouse and pray for them, you are missing a work of restoration and healing and a level of intimacy that only God can provide.

When we withhold things from God, it jacks up our relationship with Him. We pray less, feel guilty more, and we become more disconnected from Him. The same is true in our marriage. God has said that you and your spouse are “one flesh”. When we violate this principle, we allow the broken parts of our heart to stay broken, and over time we drift further and further away from our spouse…and from the oneness God desires for us.

After reading the first four mistakes and knowing that there are four more mistakes coming, one might think “Man, your marriage sucked! No wonder you almost got divorced.” The irony is that we had a good marriage. We had the best marriage we could build. God in his grace and his goodness has shown us where we went wrong and we have allowed Him to change us…and that is the journey we are sharing this week.

This mistake wasn’t in my original 8…but it became so relevant to our lives yesterday, that I felt like God prompted me to include this mistake that almost destroyed our marriage…

#5-When we argued with one another, our objective was to be right (Trisha) or to be at peace (me), rather than to grow closer through our conflict.

We got married the summer before my senior year of college. We were young and in love and somewhat took pride in the fact we never really had a major argument through our time dating. But, man do I remember our first argument…I don’t remember what it was about, but I remember how it ended. Trisha looked at me and said, “I hate you.” Argument over! Whatever the issue was, in that moment, she was right and I was wrong. I never wanted her to feel that way again…so I apologized for whatever I did and we moved on.

As kids came into the picture and ministry responsibilities increased and our life got out of balance, I began to measure the success of our marriage by the absence of conflict. So if we didn’t argue more than we argued, then it was a good week. When conflict arose, I knew that Trisha was probably going to be right; I was probably going to be wrong. I knew the easiest way to move on was to identify why she was mad, try not to make her angrier by saying I thought she was wrong, and just apologize. She would feel better because she was right…I would feel better because there wasn’t conflict.

This pattern got so ridiculous in our relationship that it came to a head on a Saturday night about 6 months before we separated. Trisha was leading worship the next morning and I was speaking (probably on conflict resolution or something)…and we get into this huge argument. After a while, I look up and it is 1:00 AM. I am freaking out. Finally, I just said, “Please just tell me what I need to apologize for so we can go to bed. We can’t lead people closer to God tomorrow if we are like this.” My motivation for resolving our conflict had nothing to do with growing closer to her…nothing to do with becoming more of who God had created us to be…it was the fact that I wanted to stand on a stage with a clear conscious and have people be impressed with who I was pretending to be.

What I have realized is that so often God uses Trisha in my life to hold up a mirror to my soul and expose things in my heart that I wouldn’t see otherwise…and he uses me to do the same for her. When I avoid conflict and when Trisha just pushes to be right, we cheat a refining process that God is doing in our life and in our marriage. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t look forward to fighting with my wife…but when we do disagree and argue…most of the time I recognize it as an opportunity to grow closer through the conflict.

This played out in our life yesterday as Trisha and I got into an argument. We just weren’t seeing things the same way. What was so cool and what brought this mistake to my mind is to see how far God has brought us. Our conversation got intense and each of us voiced our opinion…but we were both going to stay with the discussion for the right reasons…she wasn’t demanding she was right and I wasn’t trying to apologize so the conflict would magically go away. We were both committed to allowing God to work in us through what the other person had to say…and by sticking with it we understood each other’s hearts more in the end.

If you are living your life right now trying to manage your conflict…hoping you don’t argue as much this week as you did last week…I know how miserable that can be. God’s desire is to use the conflict in our marriages to grow us more into the husband and wife he longs for us to be. How do you handle conflict in your marriage? Is there a conversation you could have this week that would allow you to leverage your conflict to become more ONE with your spouse? There is hope…we started with “I hate you.” And look how far we’ve come.

The picture to the right is from 2005. It was our 10th Anniversary. We spent money we didn’t have (see mistake #3) and went on a cruise. Don’t we look happy? Wouldn’t you say from this picture that our marriage was in good shape? Three months later, we imploded. How do you go from a 10 Year anniversary cruise to not sure if there will be an 11th anniversary? A little at a time…and that is what this blog series is about. Identifying little things that put distance between us and our spouse, that over time lead to bigger and more destructive patterns. That cruise in 2005 turned a light onto a mistake that almost destroyed our marriage…

The last day of our cruise, we ended up at a seafood restaurant for lunch before heading to the airport. We sat down to eat, and Trisha started bawling…like someone was hurt bawling. I asked her what was wrong and she just said, “I don’t want to go back. This is the first time since we got married that I have had you to myself. It is first time that our life didn’t revolve around the church.” But we did go back, and we went back to the same patterns and same behavior, that ultimately led to our marriage hitting bottom…3 months later.

Here is the truth…we set goals and we had dreams. We dreamed about launching a new church. We set goals for our weekly attendance and offering. We had dreams about how many people would join a small group. We set goals for how many people we wanted serving in the church. We dreamed about baptisms and child dedications.  We were so busy with life and kids and church and ministry, that we forgot to dream about what our marriage could and should be. We weren’t intentional to dream about who our family could be…didn’t take time to set goals for where we wanted to be in 5 years as individuals or as a couple.

It may seem like a little thing, but this one area has transformed our marriage. We all have dreams…we all have aspirations…we all have a sense of destiny and a God-given desire to make our lives count. When we began to go to counseling, I realized that our entire marriage had centered around me and the call that God had placed in my heart. I knew that God had placed a call and a vision in Trisha’s heart too and I wanted her to share it. So, one night at Red Lobster, I said to Trisha, “What are your dreams?” She didn’t think I was serious…so I said it again. “Our whole marriage has revolved around who I wanted to become…who do you want to become?”  She started to tear up and began to share with me her dreams for our marriage…her dreams for our boys…her heart for our family and goals for her life personally. It was the first time that we had a discussion about her dreams with no strings attached…no wrong answers…no limits.

What we have realized is that we are dreamers. We love to imagine how God could use us and change us and grow us. Part of our role as spouses is to be used by God to draw out and help complete each others dreams. We sit down and set goals for our family…spiritual goals, financial goals, and even ministry goals. Some we hit, others we don’t…but the point is that we know more deeply each others desires, heart and passions.

When is the last time you have had a conversation like that? What if on Saturday, you went out to dinner with your spouse you said “What are your dreams for our marriage? What are your dreams for your life? Who do you hope to be in five years? How can I help you get there?” Your spouse may be desperate to dream again…and to dream again with you. What a gift you could offer with 4 simple words “What are your dreams?”

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a good friend of mine. He and his wife had a major argument the night before and he needed to talk. As he began to share what was going on, it was pretty clear that in almost every single area of their relationship, they weren’t on the same page. He felt like she misunderstood everything he said…she felt like he didn’t listen to her opinion or care about what she thought. They would have a few days of peace, and then something would trigger an argument about the same issue that they had argued about 2 weeks ago, and 2 months ago and 2 years ago. He didn’t like how she spent the money, she didn’t like how much money she was given to spend. He didn’t think she respected how hard he worked, she thought he worked way too much and didn’t put their family first. They are 7+ years into their marriage and they have separate checking accounts, separate bills that they pay, separate goals and aspirations…and they are headed for where we ended up…separation…the mistake that they are making is one that nearly destroyed our marriage…

#3-Our marriage put us in the same house but we were not always on the same team.

Let me give you an example of how this played out in one area of our marriage…

Like most married couples, Trisha and I have certain roles in our marriage. One of the things I was responsible for was our budget and paying the bills. Trisha knew how much money I made per pay check and she knew when I got paid…beyond that, I didn’t share much about our finances with her. This was a constant stress in our relationship…she never knew where we stood financially and I always got on her for spending money that we didn’t have. Most of the conversations we would have about money were after she came home from Wal-Mart with groceries or with socks and underwear for the boys. I would go off that she spent money that she didn’t get approved with me…she didn’t know what bills were coming out that week and in my mind she was spending money faster that I could make it (as a pastor you don’t make money very fast). The truth was, I was a horrible money manager. I would justify purchases by using credit cards or 90-days same as cash or put off paying a bill for a month so that we could buy something on an impulse. (I called it creative financing…it is really called stupid debt) She saw me as a control freak and a hypocrite because in her mind, I could spend the money how I saw fit, but would always get on her and question every dime she spent…so she resented me. Here was the reality: I was so ashamed of the financial condition I had put us in, I wanted to keep her in the dark…and I was too proud to ask for help. I thought for sure that if she knew how bad I led our finances, she would lose respect for me. The result was that we were never on the same team financially…we were constantly working against each other, rather than being one as God intended.
What you and your spouse need is a rock solid belief that no matter what-”we are in this together.” The absence of that belief erodes our intimacy and trust with one another. Over time you begin to question if this person really has your best intentions at heart…and that is a downward spiral. What comes next is withholding truth, hiddenness and reoccurring fights that you have no idea how they started or why they started…and you rarely resolve them. When you begin to hold your spouse suspect and question their intentions…that is a huge clue that you are not on the same page and you are not on the same team. When people choose divorce this is termed “irreconcilable differences.” But, trust me, your differences can be reconciled…and leveraged to make your relationship even better!

Maybe for you right now, you and your spouse are not a team when it comes to your finances…and there are constant arguments about money. Maybe for you it is your spouse’s career…and they are driven to work longer and earn more, and you feel their decision has caused you to question what is most important to them…and you always argue about it. Maybe you aren’t a team in how you discipline your kids…and you constantly feel like your spouse is undermining your authority or being condescending to you in front of your kids…and you argue in front of your kids about how to parent your kids.

When Trisha and I were separated, she, for the first time saw all of our bills. She realized my lack of leadership in this area…everything was out in the open. When we began to go to counseling, one of the things that we made a commitment to is that in every single thing we are going to assume the best of the other person, and move forward from there. We don’t always get this right…but we are quick to recognize when we are off…and we talk about it and we seek forgiveness and we realign our hearts. This mistake will quickly move you from being married to co-existing in the same house…and you will wake up one day and think, “There has to be more than this.” There is…God calls it ONENESS and it is available. But the price tag is honesty, vulnerability and humility. When you offer those things and assume the best of your spouse, there is a supernatural force working in your relationship to bring about oneness and joy in doses that will blow you away.

Maybe today you and your spouse live in the same house, but you are not on the same team…choose to take some time this weekend and talk about it tell your spouse… “no matter what I am in this with you…we are a team.” It has totally changed our marriage!

Spring break 2007 was the best family vacation we have ever had. We loaded up the mini-van and took off for Destin, Florida. Every time we went somewhere in Destin I said to Trisha, “This looks so familiar.” She kinda laughed it off, which was weird, because I wasn’t joking. We would go eat somewhere, or go to Wal-Mart or go to an outlet mall, and I would say, “Man, I feel like I have been here before.” Finally, I guess I got so annoying, Trisha said to me “Justin, we were on vacation here Spring Break of 2003! Do you not remember?” What she said hit me like a ton of bricks. We were in Destin, Florida for Spring Break, 2003, but I wasn’t on vacation…we were 1 week out from our first Easter Service at the church, and all I did was worry and stress and complain and work. I was there, but I wasn’t there. Maybe you can relate to this mistake that nearly destroyed our marriage…

#2-We consistently gave each other the left-overs from our day and not the best.

How does it happen in a marriage that over time, we stop giving our spouse the best of who we are and we give them what ever is left at the end of the day? Your boss gets your best or your clients get your best, or your customers get your best, your laundry gets your time and attention, and your Facebook gets its time, your to-do list gets priority…but at the end of the day, we settle for giving our spouse less than our best. Here is what is toxic…this becomes a vicious cycle that is hard to break.

I come home from the office and Trisha has the laundry done and the kitchen cleaned and the kids bathed, and dinner ready…and I walk in exhausted, overwhelmed, frustrated…whatever…and all I say is “We’re having pasta again? Really?” With that one statement, with that one act of withholding my best, I have destroyed the effort that she has given to offer her best. You know what she is thinking in that moment “My best isn’t good enough.”

On the other hand, I leave work early, go buy flowers, find a babysitter, make dinner reservations and plan a perfect evening without the kids, only to come home and hear “You must be trying really hard to make up for something. If you think that this means you’re getting lucky tonight, think again!” That statement totally defeats a husband who has done what he can to offer his best. You know what I am thinking in that moment “Why should I even try, my best obviously isn’t good enough.” And so the cycle goes…

When Trisha and I were separated, I worked at P.F. Chang’s as a server. I went from speaking to 500 people each weekend, to “Would you like white or brown rice?” One night as I was closing my section, I had a table of several high school students that had come in for dinner after their school dance. They were loud and rude and made a huge mess and hung out so long that I was one of the last servers to leave. After they left, I was on my hands and knees under their table sweeping up rice and crushed up fortune cookies with my hands into a dust pan…I stood up and looked on the table, and they had left me a $5 tip! I thought I am busting my butt cleaning up after these kids who could care less about me…when is the last time I have done this at home? When is the last time I have given to Trisha like I am giving at P.F. Chang’s for a flimsy $5 tip?

What about you in your marriage right now? Who is getting your best? Maybe you are so concerned about a clean house you forget about the husband who lives there? Maybe you are so tracked on “providing” for your family, you fail to prioritize the family you are providing for. This is so subtle and it happens little by little…and it takes a conscious effort to battle this fatal mistake. Greatness doesn’t just happen…it is achieved by consistently giving your best…and that is true in your marriage. I say a prayer every single night on my way home and it goes something like this “God, I have given my best effort today at work. I have given my best to my boss, I have given my best to my clients, I have given my best to people I will never meet, and only care about me to the extent that it benefits them…help me give 110% to 4 people who love me unconditionally and deserve so much more than what I have given to others today.”

What are some areas that you know your spouse isn’t getting your best?

How does a husband of 10 years, a father of 3 awesome boys and a pastor of a young and growing church choose to walk in one Sunday afternoon and tell his wife he wants to end it all? How do you get there? What are some of the ingredients to a marriage that hits rock bottom like that? Most of the mistakes we are going to share are in no particular order…but this first one is THE most important thing you can do to protect your marriage. It is simple, but hard. It seems churchy…and cheesy…but is so powerful. It is the most talked about thing, but the most overlooked thing in a “Christian” marriage. I believe if you never read another thing that I write, but correct this one thing, your marriage will change. This was our biggest mistake and this nearly destroyed our marriage…

#1- We rarely prayed together, and the way we prayed for each other was selfish.

How ridiculous is that? Trisha and I are leading a church, helping people find their way back to God, praying for people after the service, praying for people in our small group, praying for marriages of people we are counseling…and yet there was a barrier in our marriage when it came to praying for each other. It is totally embarrassing…but we just didn’t do it. When I did pray for Trisha I would pray in a selfish way that God would change her because she was driving me nuts or making me angry or nagging at me about something.

When we were separated I realized that I was the one that needed to change…even if Trisha never changed, I was desperate for God to change me. What we have learned is that yes our marriage is emotional…yes, our marriage is physical…but more than anything our marriage is a SPIRITUAL relationship and if we don’t take that seriously, the very foundation of our relationship will be eroded little by little.

I want to encourage you to not make the same mistake we made. You can improve the quality and depth of your marriage beginning today!