The thought for this Marriage Monday: do you cherish peace in your marriage? I hear from one or two wives weekly who are searching for that elusive peace. They cherish peace but don’t know where to find it. The good news is peace isn’t that hard to find, it’s readily available if we look for it in the right place.
The World’s Peace
The world tells us we will have peace in our marriages when our husbands change to match our own expectations of the perfect mate. We readily buy into the commercial, worldly version of marriage – Prince Charming riding in on a white stallion to scoop us up and serve us devotedly for the rest of our days.
Of course, we all know Prince Charming is a figment of our imaginations. We would never fall in love in the first place with such a plastic, one-dimensional caricature. And yet, when reality hits, these disillusioned women expend great energy trying to make their husband change to fit the caricature. They might try emotions, nagging, disrespect, the silent treatment, and eventually, contempt. Needless to say, none of these techniques bring about peace! Their love grows cold, and for many of these women who contact me each week, they can’t even remember what attracted them to their husband in the first place. They are broken-hearted over the path their marriage has taken.
There is Hope
If you are in this place, there is hope! The hope doesn’t come from a plastic man, a figment of the imagination. This hope comes from the True Peace of a Perfect God.
God’s peace comes from His wisdom, which we gain when our attitudes are careful, considerate, and teachable. His wisdom is filled with love, and is never jealous or selfish or prejudiced. When we cherish His peace, we will invest time and energy into learning from His word. We will desire that peace so much that we will be willing to give up time and resources so we can be filled with more of Him. Peace is the natural outcome of God’s wisdom. It fills us up to overflowing, and the excess will spill out on those around us, including our husbands.
[Tweet “Peace in your marriage flourishes when God’s peace bursts open your stony, cold, broken heart.”]
Let the hard shell of your broken heart fall away and cherish His profuse peace bubbling up inside you.
Finding God’s Peace
For more about finding peace, I have two resources for you.
- Making Peace with Prickly People: Transforming Relationships by Loving God, Self, and Others. On my resource page, you will find a free downloadable study guide and more. Invest in finding real, lasting peace from the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.
- Mindful: Meditate & Color Your Way to Life-Giving Relationships. A 30-day meditation guide with coloring pages, designed to feed your soul with God’s wisdom about relationships.
“If you consider yourself to be wise and one who understands the ways of God, advertise it with a beautiful, fruitful life guided by wisdom’s gentleness. Never brag or boast about what you’ve done and you’ll prove that you’re truly wise. But if there is bitter jealousy or competition hiding in your heart, then don’t deny it and try to compensate for it by boasting and being phony. For that has nothing to do with God’s heavenly wisdom but can best be described as the wisdom of this world, both selfish and devilish. So wherever jealousy and selfishness are uncovered, you will also find many troubles and every kind of meanness. But the wisdom from above is always pure, filled with peace, considerate and teachable. It is filled with love and never displays prejudice or hypocrisy in any form and it always bears the beautiful harvest of righteousness! Good seeds of wisdom’s fruit will be planted with peaceful acts by those who cherish making peace.” James (Jacob) 3:13-18 TPT
…because U count, deb