Marriage works - Session One
1 Samuel 30 Three days later, when David and his men arrived home at their town of Ziklag, they found that the Amalekites had made a raid into the Negev and Ziklag; they had crushed Ziklag and burned it to the ground. 2 They had carried off the women and children and everyone else but without killing anyone. 3 When David and his men saw the ruins and realized what had happened to their families, 4 they wept until they could weep no more. 5 David’s two wives, Ahinoam from Jezreel and Abigail, the widow of Nabal from Carmel, were among those captured. 6 David was now in great danger because all his men were very bitter about losing their sons and daughters, and they began to talk of stoning him. But David found strength in the Lord his God.
Amalek means toil and labour.
I just feel like some of you here have had to work hard to get ahead, there’s been the stress of the kids, the paying of bills, and the busyness of life and instead of being in the place you had hoped the toil and labour has left your relationship missing something.
You only have 2 choices when it comes to making your marriage work. Slow down or improve your skills.
So many people come into marriage with UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Psalm 62:5-8 My soul, wait silently for God alone. For my expectation is from Him.6 He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defense; I shall not be moved.
All of us have what I call an emotional garden inside of us.
It’s the thing that attracts your partner to you.
You can treat a garden numbers of ways.
1. Nurture it
Positive words nurture the garden
2. Poison it
Personal words poison your spouses garden.
3. Trample it.
Many of us aren’t guilty of outright poisoning our partner’s emotional garden but because we don’t really understand what our partner needs, or how to communicate that to them.
4. Neglect it
The fourth way to treat a garden is to neglect it. Without tender care, a garden gets run down. To neglect a relationship is to lower it on our priority list.
The greatest gift you can give yourself is the skill of how to deal with conflicts.
Hebrew 12:15 Be careful that a root of bitterness does not spring up and defile many.
Different Responses to Conflict.
BLASTERS
BENDERS
BOTTLERS
BARGAINERS
BALANCED RESOLVERS
Matthew 5 Blessed are the Peace-makers……….not the Peace-keepers.
9 KEYS TO MINIMISING CONFLICT IN YOUR MARRIAGE.
1. Understand you are one flesh and what that means.
2. Have a no options marriage
3. Recognise that your problem is my problem
4. Understand the difference between character and idiocyncracies.
Moving from owning it to problem solving it
Ask for feedback regularly
Stay soft(relationship with jesus keeps us soft)
Validate each other’s feelings
Practice forgiveness