Marriage Devotional

‘So the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed. On the seventh day God had finished his work of creation, so he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from all his work of creation.’ Genesis 2:1-3(NLT)

Nurture Rhythm. 

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He worked for six days and rested on the seventh, instituting the Sabbath. From the very beginning, God nurtured a rhythm of rest for humankind. Human beings cannot sustain a constant pursuit of production. We were made to have a rhythm of work and rest, learning to trust in the sufficiency of God during the Sabbath. Rest is the greatest predictor of mental health throughout a lifetime.  

Life can be hectic. It is easy for your marriage to turn into a business partnership. Sometimes we spend all our time cleaning, working, organizing, parenting, and crashing. We don’t have a rhythm to life that creates margin. Instead, we have a rhythm that creates distance in our marriage and burn-out in many areas of our lives. Couples who share joy on a daily basis generally have healthy marriages. It is essentially impossible to have sustained joy in your marriage without a rhythm that includes rest.

Couples who nurture rhythm by incorporating times of resting together, as well as playing together, create a foundation for joy that is sustainable for years to come. One couple I know always sits on the back deck together for half an hour or more in the evening and watches the sun set. Another couple plays cards every evening before bed. Habits we develop that allow us to rest together create security in our relationship and promote the kind of rhythm that helps us keep our love fresh.

Fun with Friends  15 MIN

Here is a chance to have fun while you share some joy with your friends. Creating a narrative (telling a story) helps your brain add more value to something important to you and it gives your brain the opportunity to spread joy.

Go on a date with another couple. Tell some stories, share what you are learning about joy, and invite them to try one of the four habits: Appreciate Daily.

1. Before practicing, highlight the effect on your marriage from learning the material and trying the four habits. As an example, you may want to share your favorite exercises so far and explain why these were helpful for you. 5 MIN

2. Give your friends the opportunity to enjoy the power of appreciation by doing the following exercise during your time together. Follow the steps below, and be sure each person has the chance to contribute.

• Share three highlights from your week.
• Share three qualities you enjoy about your spouse.
• Share three characteristics you appreciate in the other couple.
• Share what you notice after you practice this appreciation exercise.
• For homework in the comfort of your own home, talk with your spouse about what you enjoyed from your date night, then close with quiet cuddling and resting together.  10 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage

‘So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.’ 1 Thessalonians 5:11(NLT)

‘And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ‘ Philippians 4:8(NLT)

Appreciate Daily 

Too often when we read the Word of God, we apply it to other people. If we begin to apply God’s Word to ourselves, our minds can be renewed while our relationships become refreshed as we begin to understand God’s heart for us. When Paul writes to the Thessalonians to “encourage one another and build one another up” (ESV), shouldn’t that apply to cmarried couples? One helpful exercise is to go through the New Testament and replace every “one another” with “my spouse.” The Word of God will come to life. As Philippians 4 tells us, we should think about the good stuff and this will impact our feelings, focus and interactions. God made our brains to run on joy and one of the fuel sources of joy is appreciation.

Not long after learning about the power of joy, a couple asked to meet with me about some issues in their marriage. I decided to try an experiment. After listening to their story and validating the emotions I was hearing, I asked them to take a moment and think about what they appreciated most about the other person. Specifically, I asked, “When you were first attracted to this person, what did you most admire or respect about them?” I then had them pivot toward each other, hold hands, make eye contact, and share their feelings of appreciation. There was just one rule when sharing appreciation: they couldn’t use the word “but.” They couldn’t say, “I really admire the way you love our kids, but I wish you wouldn’t . . .” Adding a “but” to the expression of appreciation pulls the rug out from under it.

With this ground rule in place, they did the exercise, and the results were shocking. They went from barely looking at each other, sitting on opposite sides of the room, to snuggling so close I had to tell them not to start kissing. Shared joy can be a powerful thing, and appreciation is one of the most powerful habits you can form for building joy.

Food and Joy  15 MIN

During your wedding reception, you probably fed your new spouse a piece of cake. Some of you were feisty and smeared it on your beloved’s face. Either way, wide smiles surely donned your faces. This exercise focuses on the feeding part of the fun—not so much the smearing! Meals are one of the best times to build joy. Eating together provides a golden opportunity to share the gift of your attention and connect with your mate. We now turn our sights to using this wonderful food and joy combination to spark smiles.

1. Start by sharing a few highlights from your day. This warms up your brain’s relational circuits.  3 MIN

2. Take turns feeding each other a meal, snack, or dessert. Yes, this may feel awkward, but have fun and laugh. While you feed each other, express what you enjoy about each other, including how you feel your spouse “feeds you” spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, and relationally.  8 MIN

3. Once you finish this interaction, talk about what you noticed from the experience.  2 MIN

4. Close with quiet cuddling and resting together.2 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage

‘Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. ‘ James 1:19-20(NLT)

Listen for Emotion

What does it mean to be “quick to hear”? James meant much more than having your brain receive and interpret sound waves as they travel in your direction. Listening goes much deeper than being able to recite back the words you heard.

Much like our marriages, God has created our brain with two sides that work together as one. Each half serves an important role to keep the brain working together in unity. The left hemisphere is more analytical, verbal and logical while the right hemisphere is primarily nonverbal, and the right side is home to the emotion control center of the brain. Those of us who are analytical and logical, what we call, “left-brain” people, tend to listen for problems. Those who are emotional and intuitive are what we refer to as “right-brain” people who often listen for emotions. In a classic (fictitious) left-brain conversation, Anne tells her husband Tom about something important while he reads the newspaper, keeps tabs on the TV in the background, and eats his breakfast. At some point, Anne explodes, “Are you even listening to me? I feel like I’m talking to the wall!” At this, Tom calmly lowers his paper and, with a feeling of triumph, repeats back to her every word she just said. Anne is mystified but not really comforted. The reason Tom can do this is because he is listening to his wife with the problem-solving, left side of his brain. What he is not doing is tuning in to her by looking his wife in the eyes and listening for the emotions being expressed.

I have found that one of the most helpful pieces of advice for left-brain dominant people is to learn how to listen for emotions and not just problems. This helps keep your relational engine engaged. A woman approached me at a recent conference and asked, “What are emotions? How can I listen for emotions if I don’t know what they are or how to identify them?” She went on to explain that she had spent her whole life managing relationships, doing damage control, and avoiding most emotions. 

To “hear” your spouse, you need to listen for the emotion they are feeling as well as the words they are speaking. As you listen, slow your own speech. Wait until your spouse is finished. 

Validation and Comfort 15 MIN

Validation looks at how big the negative emotion is in your partner, and you say what you see and hear. We stay tender toward each other’s weaknesses. As Marcus said earlier, the caution here is not to try and fix our spouse; rather, join him or her in the feelings.

Validation = I see you are bothered about this problem. This is very upsetting for you!

Comfort = I am glad I can be here with you. What can you find in this situation to feel thankful for?

1. Start by sharing a few highlights from your day. This step warms up your brain’s relational circuits.  2 MIN

2. Next, pick a recent situation that was difficult or intimidating for you, but keep it at a moderate level of emotion so it’s not too intense. Take turns sharing your story with your spouse. (Avoid discussing upsetting moments with your spouse when you first try this exercise.)  2 MIN

EXAMPLE: My boss at work ignored me today when I tried to talk with her about my concern. I felt hurt and minimized.

3. When you hear your spouse share the situation, respond by validating the emotion (say what you see and hear), then offer comfort, highlighting something to appreciate in the midst of the emotions.  1 MIN

EXAMPLE: I can see this really bothered you. I would be hurt by this as well! (Validation) I am glad you shared this with me. Thankfully, Mike was there to encourage you afterwards. What else can you think of to appreciate? (Comfort)

4. When you both finish, talk about how this exercise felt for you.  2 MIN

5. Now it is time to shift gears with a bit of joy. Take 30 seconds to remember the highlights from your day, then sit across from each other knee to knee while you hold hands. Without using words, practice eye smiles. Look at each other with warm smiles, joy, and love, then  look away to rest. (You can play music if you like.)  3 MIN

6. Next, take turns sharing three qualities you admire in your spouse.  3 MIN

7. Close with quiet cuddling and resting together.  2 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage

‘Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love.’ Proverbs 5:18-19(NLT)

The Proverbs encourage you to find joy and delight in your spouse and it’s the first habit of a joy-filled marriage.

Play Together

I have some good friends who have been married for nearly fifty years. When I told them I was writing a book on the four habits of joy-filled marriages, the man leaned forward in his chair and said, “What’s your first habit?” I could tell by the look in his eyes he knew what he wanted to hear. I said, “Our first habit is playing together.” The man nearly jumped out of his chair. “Exactly!” He was beaming. “You have to play together and keep having fun. We have made that one of the top priorities in our marriage.” It seems to have worked. They have raised twelve kids of their own and served as surrogate parents to dozens of other young people through the years.

I have known this couple for two decades, and they have one of the most joy-filled marriages I have seen and have raised some of the most joyful children I know. One of their secrets was their commitment to having fun together. They built their calendar around family trips. They constantly invited people to their home. We often weren’t the only guests at the table when we visited them. It was clear from being around them that they worked hard and played hard and made relational joy a top priority for their family.

I also couldn’t help but notice that this man was rubbing his wife’s feet as we talked. Next to their faith in God, they both agreed that playing together was the key to being in love after a lifetime together.

Expressing Your Joy: 15 MIN

The brain processes nonverbal cues faster than words. This is why, “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it!” carries so much weight in conversation. As I say in my book Transforming Fellowship,

Eye contact, facial expressions, voice tone, posture, gestures, timing and intensity all contribute to the interactive dance we know as communication. Our body is the canvas to express our thoughts, feelings, desires, fears and our most prized memories. When working together, our brain and body tell a story that shows up on our face and in our voice.

For this exercise, you first engage the nonverbal brain in order to activate joy in your relationship.

1. While cuddling or holding hands, individually think about the first time you met your spouse. What was happening? What were you thinking and feeling? 2 MIN

2. Now, take turns nonverbally “telling” the story about the time you first met your spouse. Using your face, body, motions, and gestures, convey what was happening in the story including what you were thinking and feeling. Be creative and have fun. 4 MIN

3. When you finish your nonverbal story, tell the story again using words while you demonstrate it.  6 MIN

4. Once you both finish telling your stories, spend some time cuddling or holding hands, then discuss what you enjoyed about this exercise. Close with quiet cuddling and resting together.  3 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage

‘You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees of the field will clap their hands!’ Isaiah 55:12(NLT)

‘But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.’ Psalms 52:8(NLT)

‘Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed?’ Psalms 77:8(NLT)

‘O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.’ Psalms 86:5(NLT)

‘For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her ‘ Ephesians 5:25(NLT)

You may have heard that love is a choice. Strictly speaking, this is not true. Love is attachment. It is a bond you share through good times and bad. You can choose to do loving things. You can choose to do kind things. You cannot choose to feel love. However, the more joy you build into your marriage, the more that feeling of being “in love” will stay strong and grow.

Falling in love is all about joy. When you fall in love with someone, you experience a “joy explosion” in your brain that floods your body with hormones (like dopamine and oxytocin) that make it hard not to smile. Couples who stay in love throughout their married lives are couples who excel at the art of keeping their joy levels high. The opposite is also true. Low joy couples are in trouble. Falling “out of love” is all about the absence of joy.

A joy gap is the length of time between moments of shared joy. But when too much time passes between moments of shared joy, a joy gap is created that makes you feel distant and alone in your marriage. The wider the joy gap becomes, the more likely it is for your problems (and everyone has them) to overwhelm you. Couples who let the joy gap get too wide struggle tremendously and start to feel hopeless about their marriage. Not only does the gap rob you of intimacy, but the gap begins filling with resentment, and bad habits can begin to form that keep you apart instead of bringing you together. You start to feel like you are “falling out of love.” People rarely just wake up one morning to the thought, “I’m not in love anymore.” It happens gradually as the gap between moments of shared joy grows wider and wider with too much pain, too much resentment, and too many bad habits in between.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the authors use the word hesed to describe God’s love for his people. It’s translated as “steadfast love” in the ESV, “lovingkindness” in the NIV and KJV, and “tender mercies” by the NKJV. It reflects God’s covenantal love, His trustworthy (Ps. 52:8), never-failing (Ps. 77:8), always abounding (Ps 86:5) love for His people. It’s this enduring love that marriages should reflect and aspire to. As Paul writes in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” Our goal with this YouVersion plan is to increase your joy, strengthen your attachment to your spouse, and help you reflect the hesed of God to a watching world. 

-The following is an exercise that will help strengthen your attachment with your spouse.

Resting and Kissing: 15 MIN

Shortening the window of time between moments of shared joy requires us to notice that joy and rest are needed, and then practice strategic rhythms to increase the joy.

1. Make yourselves comfortable and spend some time resting as you cuddle.

NOTE:Keep this nonverbal to enhance the bonding experience. You can set a timer if you like. 3 MIN

2. Holding hands and looking at each other, take turns telling your spouse the qualities you first observed in him or her that made youfall in love. Include examples where you saw these qualities in action. 5 MIN

3. Next, position yourselves knee to knee and hold hands. Practice eye smiles for a joy and rest sequence. Eye smiles are a connect and rest sequence. You begin by looking into each other’s eyes to build some joy then you look away as soon as you feel like you or your spouse needs a breather – or when you feel the joy is no longer growing. After looking away to rest, engage once again with more joy then continue the rhythm. Be sure you look away at the right times when either of you feel the joy is no longer growing.

NOTE: You can play music if you like. 3 MIN

4. Kiss each other like you mean it, then discuss what you notice from this joy and rest sequence. 2 MIN

5. Close with quiet cuddling and resting together. 2 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage

‘And Nehemiah continued, “Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!”’ Nehemiah 8:10(NLT)

‘You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.’ Psalms 139:13-14(NLT)

‘So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.’ Genesis 1:27(NLT)

God created human beings with intimate detail and purpose. He created them in His image and He created them to share in His glad-to-be-together joy. Connecting together in joy is the great and glorious vision of humanity’s future. Joy in the Lord is etched into the deepest part of the human heart and drives the deepest impulses of the human mind. Joy is God’s gift to keep our marriages strong.  

ONE OF THE MOSTstartling revelations to come out of the latest breakthroughs in brain science is the discovery that there is no more powerful motivator in life than joy. It is nearly universally recognized that your brain functions at its best when it is running on the fuel of joy. You may not have realized it, but joy is the key to long-lasting marital bliss. 

JOY AND BRAIN SCIENCE

Your emotional capacity directly relates to joy. Emotional capacity can be thought of as your ability to bounce back from difficult emotions or hard situations. When you fall in love, your emotional capacity soars. The rush of joy gives you an emotional high that makes it feel like nothing can get you down. On the other hand, have you ever had days when your joy level was so low it felt like more than you could handle just to get out of bed? Joy is the key to emotional capacity. When you have lots of joy, life just works better.

When joy is high, your marriage also works better. We’re guessing you didn’t get married because you thought you would be miserable with the person you love. You got married because you thought you would have more joy with him or her. However, as you may have discovered, joy can be an elusive thing. Most of us have no idea what causes joy or how to revive it when it begins to fade. We want to provide you with a clear path and a variety of brain science–based exercises that will help you build a joy-filled marriage.

Even the best marriages can use a little guidance at times. We think you will find the content and exercises in this plan to be an invaluable guide for taking your marriage to the next level.

-To help rewire your brain and marriage for  joy, we’ve developed 15 minute exercises for each day of the YouVersion plan.

Write Your Joy: 15 MIN

Composing a love letter can be a meaningful activity that you will cherish for years to come. This heartfelt exchange provides an opportunity to express your heart and share your love the old-fashioned way. You will need paper and pen for this exercise.

1. Take a moment to think about what you love about your spouse, then write your spouse a love letter. While this doesn’t have to be volumes of books, it does need to be longer than three sentences. Take the necessary time to complete this. 

2. When finished, take turns reading your love letter to your spouse. Let your eyes light up when you read and look at your spouse. 6 MIN

3. Discuss what you enjoyed about this exercise, then close with quiet cuddling and resting. 3 MIN

from 4 Habits Of A Joy-Filled Marriage