Growing A Healthy Marriage

In the month of January my church has been doing a series on "Growing A Healthy Marriage". Today though had a lot of insight. As the pastor gave instances that dealt with his own marriage it made me think the same questions he and his wife ask everyday. Sometimes we get so selfish and forget why we are married to this person. Its not because we choose to be, its because we are following a plan that God has laid out for us. We sometimes start living our life for our marriage when we should be living our life for God and once we do its amazing what he will lift up for us in our marriage. We studied Ephesians Chapter 5 but the Chapter before that 4:29-31 is really something to think about. It says "do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs". Sometimes we get caught up by something our spouse says that has hurt and we just keeping picking at it with our words. Instead we should just on a daily basis say something supportive of our spouse and leave 3 or 4 words a day unsaid. Also we need to live to forgive. We don't always do that and its only human. Whether it be family, a spouse, friend or co-worker we need to forgive, forget and not let anything unwholesome be spoken not matter what kind of pain it may have caused. When Jesus was on the cross he spoke "forgive them for they know not what they do". He was in pain as he spoke these words. He did the all above while on the cross and never asked for anything, not even an apology. We need to be imitators of God and that pulled heavy on my heart today as I want to strive for this.