Love Believes the Best

“I am ready to believe the best of my husband.”

There are two parts to this.  One is the obvious and seemingly the most difficult.  When we are full of hurt and pain – “believe the best in my husband? But you don’t know what he does behind my back!”

But the other part is really the most important – “I am ready!”  How do I get ready? How do I prepare to believe the best of my husband?

We “ready” ourselves with the Word.  As we begin to get the Word in us and the love of God, it causes love to bubble up in our hearts.  But we have to let that love bubble up and all over our husband.  As mentioned before, what do we say over our husbands?  How do we talk to our husbands?

“My husband is strengthened in his inner man.  My husband makes right choices.” We can’t magnify his faults and imagine all the things he could be doing or secrets he could be keeping.  No, we say “Greater is He that is in my husband than he that’s in the world.”

“I make tremendous power available to my husband to choose the Word, to choose life!” Pray in the Holy Spirit as you lift him in prayer.  You don’t know what he may be going through at work or how the enemy may be attacking his mind.  Are you going to join sides with the enemy and attack your husband too with your own words and a spirit of anger?

Colossians 3:12 says “Clothe yourselves therefore, as God's own chosen ones (His own picked representatives), [who are] purified and holy and well-beloved [by God Himself, by putting on behavior marked by] tenderhearted pity and mercy, kind feeling, a lowly opinion of yourselves, gentle ways, [and] patience [which is tireless and long-suffering, and has the power to endure whatever comes, with good temper].”

This is great news! While the above instruction from the Word may look impossible, God said it and He never gives us instruction that is impossible.  We only need to realize it is not in our ability that we can be tenderhearted.  It is not in our ability that we can give mercy and have gentle ways.  It is not in our own ability that we have tireless patience and a good temper.  No.  These things all come in   His ability. 

We need to remind ourselves of Philippians 4:13, “I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].”

I can be a doer of His Word not in my own strength but in His.  As we continually look to Him and remind ourselves where our strength comes from, that His nature is in us and as we develop that nature by reading His Word and praying in the Holy Spirit, it becomes easier and easier to be a doer of the Word.  But if we approach His Word as if it were impossible, you will be right and you won’t have that change in you or in your marriage that you desire.

© 2011 Michelle Serna

Love Bears Up

What does "bear" mean?  Uphold, sustain, shore up, strengthen.  There is no weakness in bearing up.  It takes strength and stamina to bear up. 

You might say "My husband knows the bible and he knows better!"  This may be true, but we are human and we have off days and weaknesses.  When we express our love by bearing up, we reinforce the existing foundation he already has.

Ephesians 4:26 says "…but bearing with one another and making allowances because you love one another." We must be willing to make allowances for each other.

When you see someone in trouble, like a heavy weight is falling on them, you would go assist them in "bearing" that weight so all of it doesn't land on the person and hurt them.  You would endeavor to lift that weight off them.  It is the same when your husband seems to be angry or rude to you.  It's not as obvious, but they are bearing a heavy weight.  Maybe it is the weight of worry or doubt.  But it's up to you to walk in love with him by " bearing" part of the weight (making allowances for his behavior and praying for him).   Walking in love is not adding to the weight by responding back with anger and doubt of your own.

Yes, it's going to take some renewing of your mind with the word of God to walk in love.  Yes, your old man is not completely out of the picture.  It does not automatically disappear when you got born again.  It takes a continual renewing of the mind and meditating on the Word of God.  As mentioned before, He will never tell you to do something you cannot do.  We now have His nature.  His love nature.

Ephesians 1:7-8 has something to say about God's nature.  And since we have His nature, we have the ability to be this way with our husband.

⁷In Him we have redemption (deliverance and salvation) through His blood, the remission (forgiveness) of our offenses (shortcomings and trespasses) in accordance with the riches and the generosity of His gracious favor, ⁸which he lavished upon us in every kind of wisdom and understanding.

And Colossians 3:13 says "Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive]."

Let us be generous in our mercy and forgiveness towards our husband.  Let us be constantly believing the best about our husband.

© 2011 Michelle Serna