CONCERT OF PRAYER

Pray Week 744

“Marital Investment Plan”

Ecclesiastes 11:1 (ESV)  Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson stated that “…the only way to have a friend is to be a friend.”  Your spouse should be your best friend and friendships always require a nurturing, cultivating and sacrificial investment in order to deepen and remain healthy.  ‘Cast your bread…’ – Invest sacrificially without ulterior or manipulative motives.  Invest out of love for your spouse.  The following are some ‘rules of the road’ for a Marital Investment Plan.

Don’t be a sluggard with respect to your marriage.  Make no mistake about it: A great marriage takes a great deal of work.  You cannot be lazy and ignore your marriage relationship.  Your spouse must not be relegated to the status of furniture.  Offer each other sacrificial expressions of love.  Go out of your way to express your love for your spouse; no matter how tired you are or how difficult your day has been – make the sacrifice to take the time to write a note, get a card, pick a flower – something, anything to express your love to your spouse.  Be imaginative, creative, spontaneous and unpredictable with your expressions of affection for your spouse.

Don’t use your children as the glue that holds your marriage together or as wedges that drive you and your spouse apart.  Invest now in your marriage to plan for a life without children later.  Your children should be a part of what makes your family whole, not what makes your marriage whole.  Your children will grow and go – you two will remain.  Will you know each other?

Don’t allow someone of the opposite sex access to what is the exclusive domain of your spouse:  A shoulder to cry on; a compassionate ear to hear your troubles.  These are seemingly innocent, yet very dangerous to your marriage.  You cannot heap burning coals in your lap without getting burned.  Nor can you engage in an intimate relationship with someone of the opposite sex that is not your spouse without giving Satan access to destroying your marriage.  Note that intimacy does not necessarily equate to a sexual relationship.  Intimacy begins in the mind.  It is a close friendship that usurps the position God intends for your spouse to fill.

Don’t take each other for granted.  Never ignore each other’s interests such that it breeds neglect and distance.  He is always out with the boys.  She is out with the girls.  They are never out with each other.  She does her thing, he does his.  The recipe for marital failure stems from a failure to invest in ‘together time’.

Husbands, love your wife in the same manner that Jesus loves His church and it will be easy for your wife to respect you as God’s Word indicates she should.  It is a cause and effect relationship – spousal respect is earned and not casually given. Husbands, do not rule over your wife as a selfish tyrant.  Jesus is Lord of lords, yet He loves His church sacrificially, protecting her and caring for her – willing to die for her.

Intimacy in marriage grows from a trust basis and makes us vulnerable to each other.  We know what words to say that will hurt our spouse the most.  Never use your words as a strategic weapon against your spouse.  Always use your words to affirm your spouse.  Speak blessings over your spouse while in prayer and you are ‘washing them in the water of the Word of God’.  Build them up and encourage them with your words.

Take the initiative and be the first to ‘Cast your bread…’ Invest in your marriage and you will reap a healthy return on that investment.

Close in prayer, thanksgiving & dedication of your work to the glory of God