The Friday entries of The Powder Room will be dedicated to communication between husbands and wives, viewed through the context of the Scriptures. Called The Language of Love, we will discuss the Biblical description of marriage and why so many loving Christians find trouble in marriage.
Friday, November 5, 2010
It is a very painful thing for many Christian couples. They truly know the Lord and are committed to sharing a life that is pleasing to Him, then shortly after their wedding, the unbelievable happens.
Disagreement and difficulty crop up with the very person to whom they have just vowed to "love, honor and cherish" for the rest of their lives. Suddenly, "the rest of your life" begins to look very long indeed. Perhaps it is just the top of the tube of toothpaste, or where to put the frying pan in the kitchen, but little annoyances and irritations seem to occur almost daily. Left to ferment and grow, these little annoyances will soon become big issues. The problem, however, is not in the little issues, it is with the process of dealing with the issues.
Today we will look at the first reason why we as women have difficulties in our relationships with our husbands. The Scriptures give us several clues, and we will turn often to the first few chapters of Genesis as we explore the relationship between husbands and wives.
In Genesis, we see Adam was created by God and placed in the garden of Eden, where the Lord gave him a decree he should not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then the Lord caused a great sleep to fall upon Adam and He created Eve from the rib out of Adam. Eve was created to be a perfect complement for Adam in every way, in fact, Adam said of her, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh," (Genesis 2:23). Down to her very DNA, she was his perfect match with a union so complete that the Scriptures describe them,"Male and female created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created," (Genesis 5:2, emphasis mine). Apparently, a perfect marriage.
We find in Genesis chapter three, however, that Adam and Eve were not alone in the garden. Satan was there:
"Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?" (Genesis 3:1)
When Satan said to Eve, "Hath God said. . .", who was he really maligning? We have no reference that Eve ever heard God give a decree about the tree in the garden. Adam surely told Eve of the decree and in asking the question "Hath God said. . .", Satan was attacking God and attacking Eve's marriage, perhaps by maligning her husband. The seeds of doubt, distrust and dissatisfaction are tiny, but grow a great and mighty tree in a marriage if allowed to continue.
Satan was waiting for Eve at the tree of temptation and dear sister, he is waiting for us, too. Satan is at work in our marriages today just as he was in Adam and Eve's. He uses the same subtle tactics, and whether we like it or not, he still tends to favor tempting the woman first. If he can put the root of bitterness and dissatisfaction in us, he has just about won the battle, not just for the woman, but for the whole family.
We must remember, that we live in a world where we battle, not against flesh and blood . . .not against our flesh and blood, "but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places," (Ephesians 6:12).
There is one who hates our families, hates our marriages and hates our God. His every move is to destroy all three and he will lie and cheat to do so. He will tempt us to believe the battle is against our very husbands, but the Scriptures clearly tell us this is not so. We must first of all "speak the truth in love." We must hide the truth of God's Word regarding our marriages in our hearts, so that when the enemy comes to tempt us, we can counter his lies with God's Truth. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)
Knowing that many of the difficulties and disagreements in marriage arise, not from our spouse, or even from ourselves, but from a deceitful enemy who desires to devour us, is the first step in rightly seeing our spouse as the Lord calls us to and then taking the action He has called us to as godly Christian wives.
Next week we will begin to look into the "language of love" and how men and women communicate differently with each other.
Read more about this topic at The Special of the Day. . .From the Orange Moon Cafe.
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