Love makes us want to help the one we love. Therefore, it should be easy for us to desire to be a helper for our spouse. Regrettably, it doesn’t always work that way. We are so self-centered we concentrate on how our spouse helps us and overlook opportunities to be a helper to them. But this self-centeredness can be eliminated. In fact, that’s one of God’s reasons for creating marriage—to deliver us from self-centeredness.
Your spouse is God’s creation. He designed a specific plan for the one you married. This plan includes you, but is bigger than you. God’s plan for your spouse does not revolve around you, but around them. You must regard yourself as God’s partner in fulfilling his purpose for the one you married. Basically, we are instruments God uses in forming and completing his wonderful plan for others. Seeking the success of God’s plan for others should be our goal in life and specifically our goal for being a marriage partner.
Here’s a prayer I often speak to the Lord that perhaps you can adopt for your own use. “Lord, make me everything your plan for Delores requires of me.”
Men, please recall the most important command to husbands. “Husbands love your wives even as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” Ephesians 5:25.
Ladies, recall one of God’s motives for making you a wife. “I will make a helper suitable for [your husband]” (Genesis 2:18).
Blessings on your marriage,
James and Delores Fields
