how to save marriage

This is a tough question many people ask.

• Is God strong enough to save my marriage?
• Is God loving enough to save my marriage?
• Is God willing to save my marriage?
• Does God know about my situation?
• Does God hear my prayers?
• Is there hope?

Good News and Bad News

Bad news first: God gave us freedom to choose whether to be good or bad, faithful or unfaithful, and we can hurt people or bless people just as we can please God or hurt Him.

What this means is that

• God is strong enough to save our marriages
• God is loving enough to save our marriages
• God knows about our situations
• God hears our prayers if we don't regarding iniquity in our hearts
• There is hope

The Bible tells us if we regard iniquity in our hearts, God will not hear our prayers. But, we have to be careful not to let this turn us into mercenaries bargaining with God telling Him we will be faithful to Him if He fixes our marriages our helps us escape the pain we are in. To be faithful to God, we have to be faithful at heart, and we have no right to expect anyone to be faithful to us if we won't be faithful to the One who gave us life and every blessing we ever had.

Sometimes we wonder why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. But, this gives us all a greater opportunity to express a wider range of love or hate for God based on who He is rather than on what He gives to us. If all we have is roses and spring weather throughout our lives, we won't ever have the opportunity to praise God in the freezing winter or in the scorching sun. If we have no pain, if we cannot go straight into pain or into fear, then we can never master pain or fear and we can never have any courage or love to express to God or anyone else.

God only allows trials and tribulations for the purpose of bringing about a greater good. But, this is nearly impossible for the human mind to comprehend when it involves such extreme tribulations. It often seems if God were there, then the tribulation would not be so severe. But, no matter what range God allows for tribulations, the tribulations at the ends of that range will always be the greatest tribulations of our limited human experience and they will always appear extreme to us no matter where God sets the boundaries. But, we have to trust Him that He is loving and wise and able to set those boundaries in the right place.

When we learn to trust God through the trials and tribulations and loving Him faithfullly through them all, when we trust in His sovereignty and believe He is able to allow freedom of choice and pain and loss and injustice and unreasonable behavior and still cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, then we will be more joyful through the pain and more comforted, more calm, secure, assured, stronger, wiser, and more clear minded to handle what comes our way.

At that point, our faith and our love and our faithfulness is real because it is owned by God and is not controlled or tossed around by every wind that comes our way.

It is really easy to tell those who love children, families, marriage, and faithfulness from those who do not.

Those who love sincerely cannot hide it. They hunt for pro-family books and web sites like this and others. They read, study, pray, and their hearts are broken when they see a child hurt by his or her parents' divorce.

When I see an incoming link and traffic coming in from another web site, I know that the people who run that other web site are very sincere, and when I find people coming into this site directly through email, I know someone cared and is probably praying for that person and that person's family.

You can tell a person who is faithful at heart because it will be difficult for them to attend an adulterous wedding without feeling very uneasy, and they will not be able to utter words of congratulations without feeling they have betrayed their own integrity severely, and they will squirm under the examining eye of God knowing they are not in right standing at that time.

A person who loves people will comfort and pray for those abandoned by an unfaithful spouse, and a person who loves children will comfort and pray for children who suffer this tragedy. They will never try to defend it, but treat it as a among the most grievous of all sins and still do so with love for the unfaithful and a passionate desire to see them come to repentance and faithfulness.

A person who loves his or her own marriage and family will also love other families and marriages and will know that every breaking of a marriage covenant treats with contempt the value of every marriage and every man, woman and child and God Himself.

Here are just a few really quick tips or reminders for saving marriages.

Recommended Reading:
50 Secrets of Blissful Relationships

• Surrender your situation to God completely and go over the possible outcomes of your situation surrendering all of those possibilities to God, too, knowing He will bring about whatever it is that's best in the long run even if your spouse doesn't.
• Pray and think about everything you can think of to thank God for. This will help keep your mind on the good things in life and help keep an attractive and confident smile on your face.
• Put away all deceit, manipulation, power struggles and such. Don't rely on sin or abuse or sacrificing your character to avoid the outcome you don't want.
• When you find that something doesn't work or makes things worse, stop doing it
• Think about what you're doing when things are going well with your spouse. Think about what you were doing just before your last fight ended and you made up, and do that. In short, think of what worked before and do that.
• Use the "as if" technique. Imagine your spouse was not doing what you detest and that your spouse was doing what you love instead. How would you respond or behave if that were the case? Act that way -- as if your spouse were doing what you like.
• Put away worry--that's a part of surrendering to God. Think of what the worst thing is that could happen and how you would get through it with the grace of God and know that if He can help you handle that, He can help you handle anything.
• Do things you enjoy. Enjoy time with friends of the same sex.
• Don't share your problems with a close friend of the opposite sex. It can make you feel vulnerable and lead to an emotional or physical affair. See Break Free From The Affair
• When you pray, take time to listen to God, too. Read the Bible.
• Tell everyone you know about this web site and other resources that might help them have great marriages
• Go to a couple's seminar such as I Still Do or Retrouvaille or something put on by NAME Online or Marriage Savers or Restore Ministries or Rejoice Ministries or Divorce Busting. If you're in central California, contact me at this web site if you wish as I can present a Marriage Breakthrough Video Seminar from Michele Weiner-Davis, founder of Divorce Busting.

Michael Webb's Relationship Collection

Thankfulness can save a marriage. My pastor once quoted someone who said, "He who is not thankful for little is not worthy to receive much."