When you walked down the isle what did you envision your life looking like in 5 or 10 years? Did you picture yourself becoming jealous ? I sure didn’t. Yet it seems we are in that place often…
Honestly each of the verbs in our Marriage Monday passage – 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 –is so challenging isn’t it?!?!
so far we’ve seen Patience, Kindness, Jealousy, Bragging, Arrogance, Disrespect or Acting unbecoming in Marriage, Selfishness in Marriage, Anger in Marriage, Evil Thoughts in Marriage, Rejoicing In Marriage and Bearing All Things, Believing All Things, Hoping All things and Enduring All things in a Biblical Marriage.
Have you been taking the Marriage Challenges?
This week the verb phrase is: Love is Not Jealous.
Jealous feels like an evil word doesn’t it? It also feels vague so let’s define it.
Love is not Jealous – The verb tense of jealous is best explained in 2 parts.
- Envy -you have what I want.
- Covet -I hate that you have that and wish I had it and you did not.
1 Corinthians is specifically speaking of jealousy over spiritual gifts. The church at Corinth was vying for position based on who had what gift.
- Paul is trying to get them to stop competing with each other.
- He wants them to be happy that there are so many gifts to help the body function well. (Philp 2:3; 1 Peter 5:5-6 & Gal 5:13-15)
Do you notice competition in your Marriage?
If you knew B you wouldn’t say that he is competitive… but he is with me.
- He is quick to point out that I cannot park straight (I really can’t Y’all). He claims he is a parking expert compared to me.
I am also competitive with him… though I wouldn’t have admitted that until a few years ago.
- I want to be independent.
- Most of my life has been spent to prove my worth apart from “a man”.
I still actively wrestle with that and where it fits with my calling as a Wife and Mother in relation to Biblical Discipleship because it is not Biblical at all.
It is a little scary when I realize how far the cultures worldview has worked into my life! God’s way is just dramatically different!
To show love to my husband without jealousy I need to acknowledge areas where he is better than I am. (Yes, there are areas!)
It is also critical to acknowledge -Our Husbands have a need for Admiration and Appreciation.
When I am competing with him I deny him those things…
Could you use help finding Hope and Joy in your Marriage?
How about a reminder of God’s way to live as Wives (in the Wifehood)?
Come join us in the Finding Hope & Joy in Marriage e-Course
(Our Pastor of Discipleship laughingly said “It should be titled the complete guide to marriage”. But that wouldn’t get anyone’s attention 😉
This is a 9 Week study on Biblical Wifehood where we will talk about:
- Love
- Forgiveness
- Desires Vs. Preferences
- My Mouth
- Appreciation & Admiration
- The Leader
- Understanding Men
- Respect
- My Priorities
This class will include
- 10 video lessons
- You can watch live or when you have time
- 9 weeks of personal study
- 5 days each week that should take 10-15 minutes
- A private Facebook Group to discuss the homework and talk through the weekly challenges
- 45 Days of Prayer prompts
Fighting to be sure that Love is not jealous
How do we fight this natural instinct?
I need to meet his needs, rather than competing with him or tearing him down because we are different.
And Y’all, it is a fight to choose to respond rather than react!
Marriage Challenge:
Pick 1 area to Admire and Appreciate your husband this week instead of competing jealously with him.
To Fight the jealously I feel, I choose to change my reaction.
- Move from anger – ah his pointing out a weakness.
- To appreciations of his keen observation skills (try to do it with a straight face 😉 )
- And Admiration of his talent (maybe to park the car straight and all that must mean to him).
- Add a bit of sweet and sassy – to deflect the fight that is brewing in him.
And Y’all, this conversation (and many others like it) comes up repeatedly – so I get to practice and get better often!
Need some encouragement? Comment the areas you are going to pick and know that I will be praying for you throughout this series!
When we stand together in Prayer we have more power over the enemy than when we hide and pretend everything is “Fine”.
Have you joined the Reclaiming Hope & Joy in your Marriage FB group? This is a wonderful community of Wives standing together to do marriage God’s way! We’d love to meet you there!
Lets fight back together!
😉
Y’all, I know I come back to this – again and again- but this is yet another area where we have to have spent some time working on forgiveness. Right?!?!?! That competitive drive, or jealousy in either of us can cause us to say and do things that hurt. And if we are not forgiving – it builds up into resentment and bitterness that stops us in our tracks! Let me share a Pathway to Forgiveness that helped Free me!
in Him,
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