React or Respond
Do I React or Respond in my marriage? As I have grown older, matured, especially in the Lord, I have learned to respond instead of react. I will be the first one to tell you I am not perfect, and I do not always respond. Sometimes I just react! It is usually when I am tired, sick, or trying to fit in more than I should, into my day or schedule. This can be in my marriage, with my children, or with others. I think we can all agree, if you have some degree of maturity in Jesus, others rarely see it, but our children and husbands do.
Others First
We can have an others first mentality, mostly because we want to create an image of ourselves. Those closest to us, see the real us, they see the good, the bad, and the ugly. If this never applies to you, bravo!! But for the rest of the us, we struggle with an others first lifestyle. We want to be successful and seen as successful! We want to feel good about doing our part, and doesn’t it say we are to be doers and not hearers only? Sometimes we can take the word of God out of context.
What About Order?
God gave us order for a reason! He does everything well, and He does everything in order. Christ is the head, then He put man, then the woman, then children, and then finally everything else. How often do we keep this order? If we don’t plan ahead, get up early, our day can get out of order quickly.
Morning Prayer
IF, and that’s a big IF, we put God first each morning and spend time with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords in prayer, we have started in the proper order. I’m preaching to the choir here ladies! It takes sacrifice, discipline, and a hunger to get this discipline started in your life. When I wake up, I thank the Lord, I say “You can do anything Lord,” I pray for my husband, our future babies, our children, my day, and then I pray for “kindness to be on my tongue”‘, “to create in me a clean heart Oh God, and a right spirit within me.” I pray to love people the way he does, and before all this, I repent, and ask Him to forgive me for wrong attitudes and thoughts. I pray for this blog, our readers, the young marrieds, our special prayer list, our Pastor, our First Lady, and their family, our church and our family and friends. I have to pray first!
Praying Together
My husband and I spend time alone praying, and then pray together for our day, safety, (the Blood of Jesus) over our vehicles, us, work, etc. We usually drink our coffee and do our devotional together, and we end our day doing the same. This can happen, ask your husband to pray with you. If he isn’t comfortable doing this, just pray for the Lord to open his heart to it! God knows!!
Monday Moms P.U.S.H.
Monday moms push call is for our children. Pray Until Something Happens. This is a ministry set up by First Lady Candice Barlow, who is a prayer warrior, and is a wonderful way to start your week praying for the children of your home, church, nation, or around the world. My sweet friend First Lady Jessica Wardwell is also apart of this call as a admin, and prayer warrior. Prayer changes things! I post the call in every Monday morning. This helps us to focus on our children in prayer each day! 712-775-7031 Access Code is 614117 Please feel free to join in and pray! 8a.m. Eastern Time.
React or Respond
When life is in order, I respond. I am careful with my words, I am careful with my feelings and can keep them, and I am careful with the most precious people in my world. My husband and my children need me to be a good wife, and a good mother. A loving, patient, respectful, woman of God. To love, respect, and honor my husband. To meet his needs, to be a help meet, to cherish the blessing God gave me. My children need to feel love, safety, see me be an example, and be trained the way God has asked me to train them.
What about God?
Do we react or respond to God, to the presence of God, to His word? Maturity, eating the meat, not just drinking the sincere milk like a babe, says I will respond with obedience, worship, submission, love, adoration, praise, an attitude of gratitude, no matter what is happening. Just fall in love with Jesus and nothing will seem like a burden!! Immaturity says, I will react to what I feel, what I hear preached, and what I read in His word. I can be offended, distant, self absorbed, hurt, and walk in unbelief.
Reacting
If I react to God, my marriage, and everything in life, I will walk around as a victim. I will be always on the other side of victory. I will always feel sorry for myself, and complain. The children of Israel were constantly grumbling and complaining. They walked in circles for 40 years not reaching their promise. Reacting gets me nothing but trouble!
Learning to Respond
I want to walk into the promises of God with faith!!! I can’t do this when I react to circumstances I can’t control. My marriage is too important to me to not learn how to respond in the correct way! I want to learn to be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to get angry.” Respond from a place of love and compassion, thinking carefully before I speak. I am a work in progress. But I pray it everyday, I work towards order everyday, and I am intentional! You can too!! This is just a baby step towards a happilyevermarried!
Husband
My husband is a great man of God, a loving husband, and father, my best friend, and love of my life. He is a gift from God that I prayed for, he is all that I prayed for, and more than I could hope for! He is my Boaz, God placed him in my life for us to become one. It hasn’t always been easy. We have had to pray, learn each other, be patient with each others hurts, pasts, and failures. Our lives have become one, but we still have to be purposeful and work on it each day. I have a choice and so do you!! We can choose to respond today instead of react. When I respond to my husband, even in a stressful moment, I choose wisely, I am building my house. I am building him up!
End Result
The end result of responding instead of reacting is peace, joy, and oneness in our marriage!! We can focus on more important things, when I, choose to respond with love. He also will respond with love when his defenses are down, based on my words. We move past flesh, and enjoy walking together in the Spirit. Our marriages can do the ministry God has called us to do, and this is where, an overflow of what happens at home, flows down to others. We have a proper order that flows from the heart of God, to our husbands, our children, ministry and others. This is also easier than trying to be something we are not, to the blessings the Lord has given us, in our husbands, and families.
Rest
We find rest for our souls, we attend to the needs of our husbands, and children, with love and an ease that only comes from a vessel overflowing and submitted to God. When we try the other way, with an others first idea, we will eventually be bitter waters that destroy all we encounter. Others will know, they will hear, feel, and see first hand our fruit, if it is good or bad. Because it will flow out onto all we do and say. So, in responding instead of reacting, we find rest and that rest will be evident!
Scriptures
Monday: 1 Corinthians 11:3 says, “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God.” Meditate on this scripture and ask God if you are in the right order?
Tuesday: 1 Corinthians 14:40 says, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” This is our example. This scripture speaks of the church, but we can learn this for our marriages and lives. Pray you put order into your daily prayer life.
Wednesday: Judges 13:12 says, “And Manoah said, Now let thy words come to pass. How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him.” Pray today as you read the word the Lord would help you as you pray for your children.
Thursday: Genesis 2:18 says, “And the Lord said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.” God said this! He blesses marriage!! He makes us compatible to complete each other. Pray for your husband, and pray that God will show you how you can become one!
Friday: Read 1 Corinthians 3:1-23, especially 1-2. “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” Being mature in Christ is being spiritual, not carnal. Responding not reacting. Pray today God helps you to go deeper in the word and in Him!! To be spiritual and to put away carnality. To desire the meat of the word for your marriage!!
Saturday: Jeremiah 31:25 says, “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” We can find rest in the Lord!! Pray for overflow in your marriage!
Conclusion
The conclusion is simple, we must find our day covered and bathed in prayer, in it’s proper order, and respond, not react. My prayer for you, sweet lady, who reads this today, is that you would respond with kindness, love, and patience. You can do this!! My prayer for you is because if you are reading this, I know you truly want the best for your life and marriage! You want a happilyevermarried!!
Contact
Please feel free if this blessed you today to share, post, and encourage someone who wants a happilyevermarried! Our website is http://happilyevermarried.org and you can also email us at janene@happilyevermarried.org with questions, prayer requests, or topics you want covered. Thank you!!!!