8 Things that Restored Our Marriage-Part 1

Valentines Week we put together an 8-Part series of blog posts entitled 8 Things that Destroyed Our Marriage. God showed up in some very cool ways and has used that series to reach into people’s hearts and marriages and the response was awesome! We did have several people say to us “It is so helpful to read about what went wrong and how your marriage imploded, but it isn’t necessarily hopeful. Can you give us some hope of how you moved from destruction to restoration?” So today, we want to launch a series of posts entitled

"8 Things that Restored Our Marriage." (Creative title I know)

We are starting with tonight’s post for a reason…we believe that this first step in the restoration process builds the foundation of every other ingredient of restoring your marriage to all that God desires and intended.

Restoration Principle #1- Utter and complete brokenness lays the foundation for a thriving marriage.

When Trisha and I were dating and when we first got married, I truly cared about all that was important to her. When she was sad, it made me sad. When she was disappointed, I wanted to understand what had disappointed her. When she got angry with me or when I hurt her feelings, it really bothered me, and I wanted to change. But over the course of time, my basis of remorse changed. I began to be resentful of the things that made her sad. I thought she overreacted when she was so disappointed. If I knew I hurt her feelings, I justified it with the times that she had hurt my feelings and never acknowledged it.

I wish that it didn’t take our separation to allow me to see the importance of this principle. I realized that so many times through our or marriage, my motivation for resolving conflict and restoring intimacy in my marriage was self-centered. Most of the time, if I experienced remorse, it was more for the consequences of my choices than the choices themselves. For example, I would give a time that I would be home in the evening and I would usually not be home at that time. Something “important” came up, and I was often late. At first, Trisha’s feelings were hurt by this. But as it got more and more frequent she moved from hurt, to anger to resentment. Here is the sad truth…my heart didn’t break because she was hurt. My heart didn’t hurt because I had let her down by not coming thru on what I had said. I was sorry because my actions would cause an argument. I had so many things to deal with at the church, that the last thing I needed was an argument with my wife.

I am convinced that the reason that most couples argue about the same things today that they did last week and last month and last year is because there is a lack of brokenness in their hearts. Because there is no brokenness for the actual behavior, there is never life change. Repentance is shown so the argument can end, so you won’t go to bed mad, so your wife will have sex with you again, so you can go to work without guilt. But if you truly did an inventory of your heart, you are not really sorry for what you did, just that you got busted or the reaction or the ramifications of the choice. Pain avoidance is usually our primary motivation.

There is a specific passage of scripture that illuminated this condition of my heart.

“Godly sorrow leads to repentance and brings life, and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow leads to death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10

When our heart is first and foremost aligned with the heart of God, and our heart breaks for the things that break His heart, that naturally leads us to repentance…which brings life. Worldly sorrow in my opinion is to be as sorry as we have to be to avoid consequences. 

(e.g. A-Rod) When this worldly sorrow begins to be a part of our relationship with our spouse, it begins to decay our relationship with the one we love the most.

 Is this principle a part of your marriage? How broken are you for the things of God? How broken are you for your spouse? True reconciliation and true restoration in your marriage (and true intimacy) is built on a foundation of brokenness. I promise you that if you begin to pray that God would break your heart for your spouse, that He will answer that prayer. Beginning to live in brokenness paved the way for the other things we are going to share this week. Lamentations 3 is a great prayer to read if you really want to begin to apply this principle. Maybe the problems you and your spouse have aren’t as serious as the ones we had, but the intimacy and the relationship you desire are possible if you embrace and engage is this practice of brokenness…it is the first step in moving from Destruction to Restoration.