Marriage Monday: 3 Marriage Mentor Tips to Change Your Perspective

Our 3 marriage mentor tips to change your perspective come from 42 years of experience. Walking side by side for over 40 years gives us marriage perspectives we love to share with those coming along behind us.

We love to work together as marriage mentors, praying for and guiding couples to oneness in their relationship. If we can get a couple to look at things differently, half the battle is won in healing broken marriages.

Marriage Mentor Tips #1:

These marriage mentor tips actually start off with something that has nothing to do with a bride or a groom. It has to do with God, who created them and the institution of marriage. Most couples have no idea how important God is to their marriage relationship.

All evidence to the contrary, as we walk down the aisle, most of us think that amazing man in the tuxedo was tailor-made for Moi – to provide significance, stability, and sizzle until death do us part.

It doesn’t usually take long before it begins to dawn on us that we were too starry-eyed to see the obvious flaws in Prince Charming. Maybe we begin to question if we married the wrong person? Or he may be a great husband, but there has to be more… We still ache with a need for what has been coined the “God-shaped void in our souls.”

Woven into our DNA is a yearning for eternal significance that no spouse can fill. Maybe the “image” of God inside us represents that void – let’s face it, God has pretty big shoes to fill. Besides the fact that you didn’t marry Jesus, your spouse also has a void in his soul. How could he meet your need and his own too?

When you feel that ache, it’s an invitation from God. To find fulfillment, just look up to Him for that. Keep coming to Him and He will fill up your empty spots.

If you’re fortunate enough to be looking up together in marriage, ask your partner what he sees from his perspective. It’s awesome to be on the journey together. But even if your spouse isn’t feeling the ache, you go right ahead and keep looking up to Jesus.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27 NIV

Marriage Mentor Tips #2:

Second in this list of marriage mentor tips doesn’t really have to do with a couple either. It has to do with You!

The Master Craftsman has given you a paintbrush to join Him in His creative redemptive work. He began that work when you were only a few cells inside your mom. And His plan is to complete the work after you have gone to Heaven.

And the cool thing is, God invites us to join Him in this work, and he hands us a brush so we can have a say in how it is done. But you have to remember, the brush only works on yourself. Aren’t we tempted to touch up you-know-who? Don’t we think we could help our spouses be better men?

Resist the temptation and look inward for the creative, redemptive work of God. Join Him in the work and together you will grow into abundance and life.

And what about your spouse? Your spouse is there to help you see where you missed a spot – when you ask him.  

“Why would you focus on the flaw in someone else’s life and yet fail to notice the glaring flaws of your own? How could you say to your friend, ‘Let me show you where you’re wrong,’ when you’re guilty of even more? You’re being hypercritical and a hypocrite! First acknowledge your own ‘blind spots’ and deal with them, and then you’ll be capable of dealing with the ‘blind spot’ of your friend.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7:3-5‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Marriage Mentor Tips #3:

Third up in Marriage mentor tips – again you are probably waiting to hear that this tip will hook your husband and finally he will be responsible for something! Nope, guess again.

Each spouse repeats wedding vows, alone. Each one of us, all by our lonesome, makes a solemn pledge to commit to the marriage regardless of circumstances; for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health, till death do us part. Each spouse is responsible for keeping their wedding vows, regardless of what the other spouse does.

By taking wedding vows and stepping into marriage, we are accepting an invitation from the King of Kings to show the world what sacrificial love looks like. Our wedding vows are made to our spouses, but they are also made to God.

You remember learning 1 + 1 = 2? But God’s math is more like this:

1 + 1 = ONE

God

That One is a powerful One. The institution of marriage was created by God to illustrate a picture, it’s called a mystery in Ephesians 5:13-11 below.

To weave this mystery together, you have to look next to you for that. How are you going to fulfill your wedding vows today, in this mess? How are you going to love, honor, and cherish this Stinker? Ask yourself every day how you can bless and encourage and serve him. That will clear away the fog on your mysterious marriage. 

“For this reason a man is to leave his father and his mother and lovingly hold to his wife, since the two have become joined as one flesh. Marriage is the beautiful design of the Almighty, a great and sacred mystery— meant to be a vivid example of Christ and his church. So every married man should be gracious to his wife just as he is gracious to himself. And every wife should be tenderly devoted to her husband.”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:31-33‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Resource to Change your Perspective on Marriage

A great new book has hit the stands, it’s called Vertical Marriage by Dave and Ann Wilson. They happen to be our pastors, parents of our amazing son-in-law, and champions for all things marriage. They are real, raw and hilariously funny in this book.

Grab a copy and start your journey by going Vertical!

…because U count, deb