Dating Builds & Protects Your Marriage

Take a moment and think back to the days when you first met your spouse. Remember when everything was new and exciting, you were “in love”.

What does your marriage look like now?

Life has a habit of wreaking havoc on relationships, add in our adversary who seeks to destroy anything of God, and our marriages are in need of extra work and protection.

How do we protect our marriages?

Our marriages can best be protected by consistent prayer.

Working to ensure our marriage relationship stays fun and exciting will not only strengthen our relationship with our spouse, but it will also protect our marriages.

How do we ensure our marriages don’t lose “the spark”?

We continue to “date” our spouses.

A lot of times when we’re dating we do little things for each other, this should continue into and throughout our marriages.

Notes and texts saying “I Love You”, flowers that show you care, favorite meals for him to come home to, dates to places you both love, and dates to explore new places and things together.

Placing their desires and needs before your own, reveals your love by being selfless, encourages growth in you and your relationship.

Sometimes we say things like, “I’ve got him/her now, I don’t have to impress them anymore”, as a joke. Yet, there is a lot of truth to this “joke”. We all often fall into this trap.

What happens when we do “let ourselves go”, we don’t “date” our spouse, or continually build our marriage relationship?

In letting yourself go, we typically are referring to our physical appearance. Where we find ourselves not being as tidy, or attractive as we were when we were dating.

Lord willing, our physical appearance is not the only reason we are together, but we should ensure that we are taking care of ourselves and remaining attractive to our spouses.

By not “dating” our spouses, we are usually being lazy or selfish. Dating is work, it takes time, energy and planning. This is where life gets in the way. Work, kids, church, ministry, etc. are all pulling us in different directions. We must choose to stop, and focus on our most important human relationship.

Without a relationship, our marriages will die. A relationship requires communication, which happens when we spend time together. If we do not choose to spend time together, then we will just be two people living in the same house.

We must remember that God created marriage as a picture of Jesus and the Church.

Has Jesus ever left you behind? Have you noticed Him focusing on Himself, or His wants and needs?

These are impossible, for He is the Son of God. He is perfect. Yet, we are to be striving to become a bride fit for The King.

Our marriages are the place to practice that which we see Jesus do. It is in our marriages that we can become a more beautiful Bride for Christ.

Time without a doubt is probably our biggest hurdle in continuing to “date” our spouse. After work, kids, dinner, etc. we want to collapse. Most of our weekends are for us to do what we want, it’s our free time.

What if we were to take time after we put the kids to bed to enjoy an ice cream on the couch, or pop some popcorn and watch a movie?

What would the look on your spouses’ face be when they found a love note in their lunch, or on their speedometer?

In dating, we give each other all the time in the world. This should increase in importance in our marriages. For in marriage we are showing that we “have found him (her) whom my soul loves. (Song of Solomon 3:4)