Your Spouse Is A Gift!

Marriage After God Podcast – Just because maybe you don’t feel like your marriage is a gift or that your spouse is a gift right now because of circumstances, because of situations, because of hurt, it doesn’t change that.

Your spouse is a gift from God, meant to be a blessing to you, meant to be an iron sharpening iron tool in your life, meant to be a tool used by God to make you more like His son Jesus.

Hey, welcome back to another episode of the Marriage After God podcast. We’re your hosts, Erin. And Jennifer. And today we’re on week four of the 30-week marriage devotional series that we are doing. And so if you made it this far, congratulations. And if you don’t know, we’re going through the husband after God, wife after God devotionals with you all. And so if you haven’t got a copy of those, please visit shop.marriageaftergod.com and pick up your copies so you can join along. And if you’re just joining in today, please don’t hesitate to go back to

the first episodes and follow along through with us. And so we got several more weeks to go. It’s more than several. So thanks for joining us. We pray that this series is a huge blessing to your marriage as it is to ours. And so today’s episode is going to be on seeing your spouse as a gift from God. But before we get into that, I just want to invite you, if you haven’t yet, subscribe to our channel, hit that like button, leave us a review or comments. We love seeing those. They also help the algorithms so other people can find.

show. And ⁓ like I said, supporting our show is one of the best ways you can support our show is by picking up a copy of one of our devotionals so you can follow along. And by doing so, you also support your marriage, which is amazing. So why don’t we get into today’s episode and topic? Well, today the topics in both the husband devotional, husband after God, and the wife devotional, wife after God coincide. And so they’re both titled Your Spouse is a Gift.

And I love this topic, although it’s like a brief, simple concept. It’s one of those powerhouse hitters when it comes to perspective. And I think it’s good for us to stop and consider what it means to think about our spouse being a gift from God. And so we’re going to tackle this one together. And yeah, I’m really excited. I’m looking forward to just the discussion today. And then at the end, Erin and I will go through some of those discussion questions from the book ⁓ with each other.

I have a question for you. Already? Yes. Well, I was just thinking about the five love languages when one of them is gifts, receiving gifts. Yeah. Would you say that’s one of your top five? So I feel like I have all of them in different ways and different seasons of my life. And depending on needs, do. I mean, I value gifts. I appreciate gifts. But I would say that I’m more of like quality time, physical touch. Yeah. I could be wrong. What do you think?

I think you like talking, like you like to dig in and get, you know, have ideas. And also you like, we talk about dreaming a lot, like vision and future talking and all of that stuff. What about you? I think I’m similar. I wouldn’t say receiving gifts is like my top one, but it’s interesting. And I think everyone can relate to this in some way that’s listening. I think it depends on the gift.

Would you say like, like if there’s like something really special that you just weren’t even expecting it. And I just showed up with this, whatever it is, like something very special, meaningful, thoughtful. There’s been a handful of times in your life that I’ve gotten you gifts like that. It’s not just a thing you need or, but it’s something that means something deeper. And I think the same things happen to me. So, I mean, I love receiving gifts, of course, like, but I don’t, I don’t necessarily like need someone to get me a gift, but there’s been times.

that someone just without even asking goes the other way and gives me something, a gift. I’m like, wow, that was like really thoughtful and meaningful and meant a lot to And that part is what I was going to highlight is that gifts are significant when they’re given in sincerity. And when you know that person went out of their way to consider you and to think of you and to know you, right? To know someone. You’re giving them a gift and watching them unwrap it. And you’re waiting for that, you know, excitement too. This is so cool. This is so amazing. Because it sends the message, you are known, you are loved.

And I think that that’s really powerful. If you don’t know what Erin was just talking about as far as the love languages, there’s a book out there by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages. And I think a lot of churches actually went through like maybe a season of talking about it a lot. It’s a very well known book, which you guys are welcome to check out if you want. So yeah, going back to your first question, I do think that I tend to land in all the categories in different times.

But in talking about gifts, this is kind of what I wanted to intro with is just this idea that when a gift is given and shared and sent that message, hey, I see you, I know you, I love you, it’s powerful. It’s so powerful. ⁓ And I think that even more so a gift given with a story tied to it, like illuminates the gift. Because have you ever gotten a gift and the person says, okay, hold on before you open it? Yeah.

Or yeah, let me explain why I got you this or maybe the story comes later when you’re telling someone, you know, oh, I got this really cool gift, but let me tell you the story. just I those. But I have a gift like that that you gave me sitting downstairs. So do you remember the Valentine’s Day gift that you gave you? weren’t we weren’t engaged or we were dating, right? I think we’re dating. Yeah. OK, so Aaron wanted to hand make me a special gift for Valentine’s Day. And so he

made the frame of a canvas and it’s exactly as tall as me. Yeah, I custom made a canvas. So I bought the material and made then he painted on it a favorite flower of mine. But what’s cool is the story that comes with it. So you gave me this gift on Valentine’s Day and ⁓ I don’t It’s a picture of your favorite flower. Yeah, I just said that. It’s okay. But then on top of it, there was a radio show, a Christian radio show. think it was Air 1.

Yeah, there was a morning show on the way to work. would listen to it. And they asked callers to chime in and say, like, what did you get your significant other for Valentine’s Day? And so you happen to randomly call and get picked up. That’s crazy. was like, ⁓ hi. But what’s so cool is as you’re talking, my stepdad was driving to work and he happened to be listening because I think I took his car the night before. And so I had left it on this radio station because I don’t think he normally listened to it.

And he overheard you telling them what I got for Valentine’s Day and he recognized your voice. Yeah, this must have been God’s way of like helping your stepdad get ready for me to want to marry you. Like soften in his heart or whatever. It was like, this guy really loves my daughter. Yeah. And so it was just a really cool conversation later on that day. My stepdad seeing the gift and me talking about it and then him saying, did he call in? Like did all this really happen? And we laughed about it. But how cool is it that

that was kind of like, it was a really cool gift. I loved it it was very personal to me. We still have it. And we still have it. It’s been like 20 something years. But the story that goes along with it of like even the tie in with my stepdad and him, you’re like finding favor with him. It built on the meaning of all of that. I do want to just do a shout out to all the men. Like that’s not a regular occurrence. Once every 10 years, I do something really special. I didn’t even know you had called in until I heard it from him.

Yeah, that was interesting. And when I found out later, I didn’t realize it was so funny that your dad heard it too. Excuse me. So, okay, so I just wanted to share that to get out of the way. But so in this chapter, we share some scripture that takes us back to the beginning of time. And ⁓ collectively, it’s all of our stories because it’s the beginning and it’s from the Garden of Eden. Adam was in awe of the gift that God gave him, his counterpart, his wife.

Adam received her with gratitude not because of anything she did, but because she was a gift from God and he trusted God. In Genesis 2.23 it says, then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman. God saw Adam, knew Adam, understood what Adam needed and God knows that we…

need someone by our side and that we shouldn’t be alone. scripture tells us that two are better than one. We shared that last week. What I love about this is – like we might be able to read this and it doesn’t say God gives a gift to Adam but that’s exactly what he does. He sees him and there’s all these things happening in Genesis 1 and 2. God created the earth and he created the light and he created the ocean and he created the fish and animals and one by one he creates all these things.

And says, it is good, it is good, it is good. And then he makes man and he says, this is very good. But the one thing he says is not good is when he sees Adam alone. And when Adam recognizes that he’s alone, he’s like, where’s one fit for me? Where’s a partner for me? And in Genesis 2, 18, says, then the Lord God said, is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. This is a gift. This is God seeing Adam, knowing Adam, knowing how he made him.

that he made him for relationship, not just with him, but with others. This is the story of the Bible, that God wants us to be in relationship with him, but also with others made in his image. And so God gives him a woman. And it’s amazing how God made Eve for Adam as a gift, as a partner and a helper for him. I think that’s really special that women were made as a gift. I do. I love it too.

⁓ I love how different a man to a woman is and how beautiful the design that God poured into us is. And I think that ⁓ even though there are differences, there’s also lot of similarities and a lot of common ground and a lot of things that we can relate to each other on. But the whole idea of marriage is just exploring those differences and coming to understand each other, but also relating in the similarities and just that back and forth, those interactions that

togetherness, know, not having to experience loneliness. I just think it’s beautiful. So much is tied up into this gift of having a counterpart and marriage and unity. And the whole purpose of this chapter in our devotionals and this week’s episode is to help us shift our perspective because life happens. Hard things come. Marriage isn’t easy. Relationships are difficult.

⁓ We have sin that gets in the way. We have life that gets in the way. We have all sorts of things that change our eyes for each other and our hearts. the perspective we have is going to shift how we respond, relate, react ⁓ and behave toward each other. And we just we’re trying to help reorient our eyesight, how we see each other. And just as Adam received Eve, like he’s there and God’s like puts him to sleep.

takes a rib, makes a woman. He’s like, whoa. And then God even comes and presents the woman to him and says, here she is. And he’s like, whoa. He’s like, this is something for me personally, specifically. Which makes me think on a wedding day, presenting each other, no matter how you do it, whether it’s in a church or outside or at the courthouse, you are being presented in that same way. And traditionally, you see a father like

handing the daughter over. This is very similar to God giving Eve to Adam. And it’s something that we need to reconsider. We need to think about this. If you’re newlyweds listening to this, you’re probably there. Hopefully. Hopefully you’re like in this really infatuated honeymoon phase and you’re like, yeah, of course she’s my gift. But that can wane. And we have to remind ourselves, we have to remember, oh man, this person is a gift. And to be honest, if you think about just humans in general, life is a gift. Like every human being you see

to put this despite how you think of that specific person is a gift from God that he created us in the image of God and I think that’s amazing. Yeah, not taking it for granted. Yeah. So I just want to read Proverbs 18 22. This is specific to husbands, but the concept is universal to husbands and wives. It says, who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. There’s a huge blessing that comes with marriage.

and unity and becoming together as a unit, as one in one home, as one family, because you get, when you get married. This is what God’s talking about. That you find a good thing. You’re obtaining favor from the Lord. God looks at family and looks at marriage and he loves it. It was his design. It was his idea. It was his gift. That’s what we talk about with marriage all the time. It was his idea. Yeah. If you just think of some of the things that are good that come from getting married is ⁓ intimacy, connection, building a family. Help. Help.

using your marriage and your family to serve like in capacities in the church or admissions or just in your neighborhood. There’s so many different things that a family unit can do on top of leaving a legacy. Like your family and you know the kids that you’re raising up are going to see your marriage and reflect it and go be married and it’s like a multiplication process. Well and the truth of this is regardless of how you feel about your marriage right now. It is

You do have favor from God. God sees you, knows you. He wants good for you all the days of your life. It doesn’t mean that we’re always going to be happy. doesn’t mean we’re always going to be healthy. It doesn’t mean we’re never going to have strife or arguing or fighting. But it says, he who finds a wife finds a good thing. He who finds a husband finds a good thing. you – marriage is a good thing. You’re no longer alone. You’re no longer one. You’re no longer doing this life by yourself. You have a friend, a partner, a lover who’s with you in this.

And sometimes even when they’re not, but this truth in Proverbs 18 is still true. I’m going to read James 1, 17. says, good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Again, going back to like, just because maybe you don’t feel like your marriage is a gift or that your spouse is a gift right now because of circumstances, because of situations, because of hurt, it doesn’t change that.

Your spouse is a gift from God, meant to be a blessing to you, meant to be an iron sharpening iron tool in your life, meant to be a tool used by God to make you more like His son Jesus. That’s an amazing gift. And so like it says, no shifting, no variation. What comes from God is good, and your spouse is from God. So here’s the question.

Will you receive your gift with joy or reject it as if it wasn’t good enough? And this is really a question we should be asking ourselves daily. And I think that the cue, like what reveals how we’re receiving our spouse is our attitude towards our spouse. So for our marriage, Aaron, if I were to ask myself this question, am I receiving you with joy every morning or am I rejecting you? Am I pushing you away? Am I grouchy? Am I…

cold towards you? Am I upset about something that you did and not communicating well? Or, know, in what ways is my perspective towards you and towards our marriage ⁓ receiving this truth from God that you are a gift? Yeah. What message are you sending with how you receive me? Do you see me that way or do you me some other way? And vice versa, towards me. Yeah, same with husbands. Do you see your wife as a gift? Do you recognize that? And it’s okay if currently you don’t.

When I say that, I it’s easy to be there. We can forget, we can neglect. We cannot be satisfied or content. We can be hurt, frustrated. But if we shifted and we asked, well, why don’t I see my wife as a gift? How can I show her that she’s a gift from God and see her that way? Having a heart of contentment and gratification, gratitude, not gratification, gratitude, ⁓ is what we’re talking about.

Are you thankful to God for your spouse? Regardless of if you think that they’re operating the way you want them to or the way you deserve to be treated. This is the truth is do we see them that way? would you say if you woke up and you thought to yourself, my husband is a gift, like he’s a good gift. Do you think that would have a drastic shift in the way you respond, think, act?

Absolutely, I think that ⁓ it’s important that I do and that collectively wives we do acknowledge those things and I think gratitude like you already said plays such a huge role in that because if my thoughts toward you are ⁓ considering the things that you’ve done or who you are and how you’re leading our family is in a thankful heart, I will be more prone to see you as that gift. And what do we do with gifts you guys? The gifts that we appreciate and that we love,

We cherish them, we put them up on a shelf, we make sure that they’re clean and that they are protected and that they are taken care of. And then we boast about them and we show them off. We talk about them in a positive way. That’s true. Yeah. And I think that when our hearts and our minds are not on gratitude, when we’re not being thankful for what we have been given, that’s when our thoughts get…

overwhelmed, frustrated, ⁓ emotional and negative towards each other. I think we actually go the opposite direction. begin to think like what would be the opposite of a gift like a curse maybe like like something stolen from you or taken away or like I think when we allow that to happen, we stop seeing our spouse as a gift. We begin to see them as something else altogether and we don’t want that. We don’t want to have this negative connotation of our spouse.

that will never bring good fruit, having a negative, angry, bitter perspective of your spouse. But what can bring good fruit is a total shift to like, well, I may not be happy right now. I may not be having joy right now. I may not feel loved right now, but if I change the way I see her or him, everything else will begin to follow that progression. So.

Yeah, and you sometimes our negative perspective of a spouse is just a lens, know, colored glasses that we need to take off and that we need to remind ourselves of the truth, the truth of their character, the truth of what they actually do for us and with us and as they lead our family. There are other times where, you know, maybe they have made mistakes, maybe they have done things that have hurt us, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they are still given as a gift and there are significant other.

and they’re special. And there’s going to be, there’s a reality of, ⁓ even though we use the term gift, you know, there’s a reality to life because we’re walking in the flesh that we hurt each other and that we offend each other and we can work those things out. But if we allow, if we allow ourselves to have this vision that is colored a certain way and refuse to understand the truth of who they are and kind of see the potential in them.

It’s going to make for a miserable marriage. We have a friend that would always say, it’s a hard thing to do, but he would always say like when you’re dealing with someone, try to relate to them as if they are Christ rather than who they are to you in that current moment. Almost like putting Jesus between you and like try and relate to Jesus. And I think of that scripture where Jesus says like, least you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done unto me. And so we can actually look at our spouse and be like, I’m going to try and

look for Christ in them, especially if they’re believers, Christ is in them. And you can say, I need to be seeking Christ in this situation. I need to be looking for him in her or him. And so it helps us change our perspective on what we’re seeing, what we’re looking at, what we’re looking for. Like you said, perspective is powerful. So do you see your spouse as a lover, a friend or an enemy or an inconvenience, a mistake? That’s a sad one. There’s been many.

many couples that have reached out and they use that word mistake or ⁓ not right. They say that God wants me to be happy and I’m not happy. so they think because of that line of thinking, they think I have the wrong person. And the reality is, when you’re married, that is the right person, regardless of how you feel about it. ⁓ And they are a gift from God and we got to shift that perspective. Yeah, because what we believe about each other is how we’re going to be influenced to treat each other. Of course.

Yeah. Okay. So I didn’t know if you wanted to talk a little bit about like, what are some ways that I’m a gift to you? then, well, this is, I like this exercise. Just to give a little perspective. want everyone listening to practice this exercise as well, because in doing this, it will help you again, shift the way you think. So the question for me is what are some ways that you’re a gift to me? Okay. This is, and then you’re going to answer the same thing. ⁓

You’re my partner in everything. It’s literally what I asked you to marry me on. was like, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but I want to do it with you and I want to do it for God. Which we’ve been doing. And we’ve been to the best of our abilities. We’ve been trying to do that. Yeah. You’re my lover. And so in many different ways. And I think that’s really awesome because I don’t need to look for that anywhere else. And that that’s another gift is that I am free to be not alone.

And there’s a fulfillment. There’s a fulfillment in that, yeah. You made me a father by giving me children. So you gave me gifts of children. that’s a huge, that’s another huge gift. we’re going to talk about marriage itself being a gift from God, but that’s one of the purposes God created marriage was that we would create children and grow this world with people, with children who know God. ⁓ You love our children. That’s another huge gift.

and you teach them so well, you manage our home well. That’s a I feel like I’m still working on that. I know we all are, but it’s not like it’s not being managed. Our house is in order and you love our home and you take care of it well and you’re my best friend. And so even when I’m insecure in other relationships, I have you and you’re there and you’re my we’ve always trusted each other in that realm. I’m just leaning on each other.

I already said that one. Let’s skip to the next one. You always encourage me to be better. That’s a huge gift. This goes back to that ⁓ Ecclesiastes scripture about three is better than, you know, two and two is better than one. ⁓ When I fall down, you lift me up. When I’m walking tall, you encourage me to walk any taller. You’re constantly pointing me back to Christ. So I don’t think there’s any better gift in this life other than Jesus Christ himself as you.

And then my children. say that. That’s awesome. So now I share some ways that you’re a gift to me. You lead me. ⁓ I should say us, like our family. You give us direction. Like if there’s something coming up that we’re working towards as a family. ⁓ It was you who suggest all those years ago that I pour into writing, which I appreciate you for because it’s been a gift to me to ⁓ have an outlet, but also an encouragement in my life that I.

feel like God’s been able to use me in? And he has. I should say us, like you said, partner. Man, we’ve done a lot. We’ve accomplished a lot, which is cool. It was also you who suggested homeschooling, which was not on my radar at all. It’s a little bit more than a suggestion, but yes, I did read that up. That was a really cool one because I never would have thought that I was capable to pull something like that off with so many kids, but it’s been a gift to me also just in me continuing to learn alongside them and watch them grow.

It was also you who said yes to having a big family first and my heart followed after. We had no idea what that meant but we were willing at least. But you were very confident in all of these areas that left me with a lot of doubter questions and ⁓ at some times along the way frustrations but you were always so good to lead my heart according to God’s scripture and just the trust that you have in Him and in both of us that our unity

is powerful and so I’m grateful for you in that. You also have encouraged me like seriously every day. You send encouragement to me whether it’s a text. Just the other day I’ve been working on fasting just to encourage my health and get ⁓ experience some healing in my health. ⁓ And you texted me the other day and you said, just a couple of hours left. You could do this and it like meant the world to me. Did it help you get through those? Yes, it did.

Yes, it did. ⁓ You really are. You’re an incredible father. You really are. pour into our kids. You’re very present. ⁓ And you just, you treat them like adults almost because you expect the maturity in them, but you also can get down on the floor and play with them. And I just, love watching you with them. Thank you. I feel like my list is really long. So I keep going.

I’ll just be frank. You treat me whether it’s to a date night or to things that I’ve always wanted, which is a joke in our family because I always say I always wanted that. You have a list, pretty long list, lengthy list of things you’ve always goes out of his way, you guys. It really fills me up and satisfies my heart. You don’t get mad when I doubt or have questions or wrestle whether with spiritual things or friendships or whatever it is. You’re very quick to comfort me and walk me through.

maybe the logic side of things because that’s not my first go-to. ⁓ Physical touch is a huge one, just being present and… You like your hair played with. I do. like your hugs. like your hand holding. like all of it. I like cuddling. ⁓ I love it. ⁓ Yeah. Support and parenting is a huge one. Like anytime I have a wrestling there, you walk me through it and oftentimes you’ll even walk the kids through it for me. Heart issues.

Yeah. it’s good. Hearing all this makes me want to do it more. Yeah, that’s encouraging. Did I say you’re a good mom? that one of my… You said I teach the kids well or something? I think there’s more though. You said I was a good dad and I was like, wait, you’re a good mom. You did say I love the kids very You do. You love our kids well. You’re my forever date. Every time we get to go somewhere together, just so… I feel blessed. I feel blessed to know that you’re by my side. You never have to worry about who you’re going to take. I know. And you always look so good.

The last one was that you just you remind me of the truth constantly kind of like how you said I always point you to Christ you do it far better than I do. If anything I just repeat back to you the things that you shared with me. need that though because I forget. Speaking of dates though we have a couple more people in our family that you’re going to be able to take on dates other men coming up. yeah the boys. Yeah boys and the girls.

When our kids got wind of date night, they were like, they get so excited when they go out with us. What’s beautiful about what we’re doing and what we want to encourage those listening to do is it’s a good practice to do this. It reorients your heart and mind to thankfulness. Like, wow, what I have is a gift. regardless of where you’re at in your marriage, you can do this. It may be hard, but you can do it. Write it down. It’s pretty powerful to write something down and

Because then it goes out from inside your mind onto paper and now it’s like in existence. It could be read, it could be folded up and put in your wallet or in a book. And so it makes it more real and it doesn’t just exist in the recesses of your mind. write it down. importantly, your spouse gets to hear it because sometimes when it’s in – like when things are in my mind and I don’t get them out, I don’t write them down or I don’t say them, they’re just locked inside my mind and you don’t get to benefit from that if I don’t.

share it with you. And so we just want to encourage you guys to consider just what it means to you, what your spouse means to you, and to share it with them. Good example. You you’ve organized our closet, which our closet, it’s out of sight, out of mind. And so sometimes it gets a little cray cray. and I aren’t the most organized people. In some areas we are. We’re both accepting of But I go in there and like you had like spent a lot of time organizing it.

And in my mind, I’m like, wow, she did a really good job. And then like, I move on, but I never said it did. You’re like, did you even notice the closet? like, I told you I liked it, didn’t I? And you’re like, no, I’m like, oh yeah, it’s great. It’s important to get those gratitudes out. Well, and for me, I I yeah, I need the affirmation too, because that keeps me going to do other areas of the house. Well, and we mentioned in the past, I don’t remember when, but someone once I had talked to said, you know, what you appreciate appreciates. So you got to…

keep appreciating your spouse. Everything that they do that is appreciatable. You know, as the scripture says, whatever is good and noble and pure and praiseworthy, think on those things. Point them out. So, seeing each other as gifts to each other will influence how you treat each other for the better. It will. Could you imagine if you were to say all of those things about your own spouse? Men, you say those things of your wife and how you think about her.

and write them down and then even say them to her. What do you think that’s going to, how do you think that’s going to affect her and how do you that’s going to affect how you see her? It’s going to affect you in a major way and how you are behaving, responding, towards your spouse. Yeah. And in addition to your spouse being a gift, we also wanted to highlight how your spouse is also a reflection of God’s grace. You know, as a sinner, how God still forgives you and loves you and remains close to you. In marriage, we hurt each other.

Not all the time, but we do and we sin against each other and we make mistakes and we walk in selfishness. Yet our spouses have an opportunity to say, I forgive you and that is powerful. ⁓ And I think that’s such ⁓ a beautiful example of how God loves us is how we love each other in marriage. And something that you’ve said to me more than one time is I’m not going anywhere. ⁓ And it just reminds me of God’s faithfulness to us, but also your faithfulness in our marriage.

Well, in our marriage, that’s one of the gifts of your spouse is not only do they sanctify you because their sin rubs up against yours and it just, it’s inevitable. It’s going to have those things are going have to be dealt with and called out. But just as the Bible tells us that we’ve been given the ministry of reconciliation, that we’re better to practice that than right there with your spouse. Offering forgiveness, asking for forgiveness, reconciling, getting back on the same page is like…

It’s one of God’s greatest graces that He’s given us in our marriages. Yeah. I want to encourage you that the topic of reconciliation is going to come up in a couple of weeks. So make sure that you still stay tuned because it’s a really good one. ⁓ But we did want to share about this briefly today just because in knowing that your spouse is a gift, knowing how it benefits your marriage, knowing how ⁓ seeing each other in this light really matters is important. And so some of you listening right now, you might need to hear

this specifically today and just be reminded how powerful it is ⁓ that when there’s discord, when there’s sin, ⁓ being able to choose to forgive your spouse and to reflect God’s grace to them is just, it’s necessary. ⁓ it’s transforming, it leads people to, ⁓ I don’t know, to a better place with God and with each other. Yeah, we’ve talked about this in other episodes as well about

Understanding how God desires us to forgive, he commands us to forgive each other so that we will be forgiven. ⁓ It’s a powerful thing and it starts with essentially humbling your own self because you may be the one that was wronged ⁓ and you’re like, I just don’t know if I can forgive them. Just realizing what was forgiving you on the cross. That’s where we’re supposed to start is the gospel. Be like, wow, I was forgiven all my sins.

And then we’re commanded to forgive each other because we were forgiven. And so if you’re having a hard time forgiving your spouse – and forgiveness also doesn’t mean everything’s fixed. I just want to let you know that we acknowledge that just forgiving your spouse in your heart doesn’t fix if there’s an issue. But it’s beginning for sure. And it’s required. There is no fix if there’s no forgiveness. But forgiveness allows the pathway to reconciliation.

Yeah, and reconciliation is necessary to move forward in seeing each other as a gift. Because it’s easy to do it on your wedding day. You know that things are going to be, quote-unquote, unwrapped later. I’m being kind of cheesy. I was like, there’s one way to unwrap the But there’s so many different seasons of marriage and as time goes on, you guys, we experience so much together. And so in order to continue to see your spouse as a gift, you have to continue to walk in God’s ways.

understand that power of apology and forgiveness and reconciliation. Well, and like we said, unwrapping your gift. Of course, there’s the sexual connotation, but what we’re talking about in general is unwrapping the recognition of them being a gift to you and continually looking for what that means, becoming familiar with your spouse, knowing her, knowing him, cherishing and protecting like you brought up earlier. Like when you have a really special gift, you’re like,

I protect this. I don’t let people just fool around with this. I don’t leave it out and about. I take care of this. I protect it and I love it. I love that you said and you display it like I want to see it. Yes. And that is ⁓ stewardship. You’re stewarding your marriage, this gift that God has given you and that’s a very important ⁓ quality and position that we can have as a spouse. I thought of something as we were talking that I just wanted to point out.

something about receiving gifts, ⁓ to truly receive a gift rightfully, because you can receive gifts in many different ways, like, that’s exactly what I wanted, right? ⁓ But to receive a gift humbly, like, wow, I can’t believe you got me this. I could never have afforded myself. I don’t even deserve this. I don’t know what made you think of this for me. Having a humble heart in the reception of a gift.

So humbly receiving your spouse and saying, okay, God, maybe right now she doesn’t look how I want her to look, act how I want her to act, sound like I want her to sound, but look at yourself in the mirror and have humility and say, okay, Lord, I need to humble myself because in reality, what I deserve is death and hell. And so I want to receive this gift with humility.

Marriage After God Podcast – Hosted By Aaron Smith (36:43)
So humility is just a really important aspect in being able to receive your spouse as a gift. Because without it, you will never see them as a gift because you always think, I deserve something more. Rather than what God gave me is more than I deserve. So having humility ⁓ lends to then being able to feel grateful for the person in your life and for your marriage. Absolutely. Well, when you feel secure in marriage, you’re more open and available to

⁓ being intimate and close with your spouse, which in and of itself is a whole other gift to marriage. But also when you feel secure in marriage, you’re also more open to being used by God, which then becomes a gift to the world. And we share about this in Marriage After God in our book and on our podcast a lot ⁓ that your marriage has the potential and the opportunity to experience extraordinary things for the kingdom of God when you guys

you know, work together. And so like you’re talking about being able to walk in humility and to see your spouse as a gift and see your marriage as a gift. You will be more inclined to be able to serve others, ⁓ serve your kids, serve your community and, and work in tandem with God and what he’s already doing in this world to bring the light of the gospel to everyone. And if you’re both seeing each other as gifts.

Like my wife’s a gift and you see me as a gift for you from God, you’re going to have more contentment, more joy. You’re not going to be discontent or unhappy and focusing on, I’m not getting what I want. You’re going to think the opposite. Wow, I’ve been given such an awesome gift. That’s where that security is going to come from. It’s going to come from seeing your spouse rightly with clear eyes, with Jesus eyes.

I would say. Yeah. And going back to like you said, if you are feeling discontent or unhappy or like things are just not measuring up for you and the things that you want, ⁓ it’s so much harder to surrender and submit yourself to God and to say things like, you know, in a prayer, God, use me to do your will. That becomes very stretching and hard because your heart is more hard. Wouldn’t you say? Absolutely. I feel like you’re, if all you’re looking for is what

you’re not getting. There’s no way to ask God, okay, how can I give? How can I serve? How can you use me? How can you use our marriage? Yeah. Or you’ll miss the opportunities that are right in front of you. Because it’s not like God comes along and says, see this here, right here, and explain word for word what he wants you to do. But there are so many opportunities where you know they’re from him. And usually it’s in hindsight when you walk away from, you you have an appointment somewhere and you have an interaction with someone and you’re like, wow, I can see God’s hand all over that one.

Well, your heart was ready and primed and your mind was ready and primed to be able to pour into that situation, whatever was going on because, you saw it for what it was because you were walking humbly and, and in gratitude versus selfishness. do want to make one note. I think that there’s a difference between having a humble heart, seeing your spouse as a gift and being able to pray for them in areas that they need prayer for. let’s say you, you, you are struggling with things. have

Both of you have character issues and you’re praying for your spouse that they would grow and that God would get a hold of their hearts on some sin issue or like we are to do that. Yeah. But that’s much different than having a discontent, unsatisfied, bitter heart, which often you’re not going even to God in prayer. Yeah. You’re just angry. I was going to say the differentiator is anger because when you are wrapped up in angry anger and hurt.

Oftentimes you probably aren’t motivated to say a prayer like that to consider your spouse. That still requires humility. So it is good and okay to pray for your spouse to request the Lord work in them. We all need it. Yeah. How many times have you prayed for me? a number you couldn’t even count. And it’s back and forth. We’ve prayed for each other. But it’s a different heart posture toward the Lord when we’re praying for someone that we see with his eyes.

That’s really good. I love that. And so often in different seasons of marriage, but sometimes even in the day to day, it’s okay that we ask God to reorient our hearts and our minds that we see our spouse as a gift. Like we need that. ⁓ Even if everything’s okay, even if there’s nothing hard specifically, you know, going on. Yeah. One other aspect to add to that is not just, so there’s the, there’s the, on the one side being able to see your spouse as a gift, but then the

Next question you get to ask yourself is, you behaving, walking, acting, being the gift God desires you to be for your spouse? Which is a whole other like, oh, on one side it’s, you know, what do I get? And the other side is like, what are you? What are you to your spouse? And so it makes me think of the golden rule in the Bible. We’re often telling our children, you…

Would you want someone to do that to you? No, then you shouldn’t do it. Yeah, my mind went to our kids. you know, we’re in fall now, so we’re dreaming up Christmas lists and ⁓ they’re starting to write up what they want for Christmas, but it’s our jobs as parents to help them navigate that and say, what can you bring to the table? You know, we all drew names with cousins and for Secret Santa. it’s like, what are you going to do to go out of your way to be thoughtful of them and to consider their Christmas list?

That’s what I think of when you’re bringing this up. Yeah, Luke 631. as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. Like, are you being the gift that you desire your spouse to be to you? Or do you just think that you deserve the gift and you don’t have to be a gift and you can, like, they just need to see you a certain way and you’re not going to, you don’t need to change or walk or be anything of value to your spouse? Or do you see yourself as the gift that you are and say, oh, I need to be walking like a gift.

I’m be treating my wife as a gift that God wants me to be for her. That’s good. Yeah. It’s big question to ask because on one hand you’re looking, you look to the other, the other hand you look inside and both things are necessary. That’s awesome. We will begin to treat our spouse and our marriage better with more care and with more appreciation and concern as we pour into feeling grateful for them and having thanksgiving in our hearts and even adoration.

for our spouse and doing things like thanking God every day just for them. It’s a good practice. you first thing in prayer for your spouse is, thank you for my wife. God, thank you for my husband. And then move to like, hey, protect them, Lord. Help them in their mind and the thoughts that they have. Help them in that area that they need to grow in. Help me to be a helper for that. How can I encourage them? How can I walk with them? What scripture can I bring to them?

It just, changes the whole atmosphere in your home when you start seeing this way. Yep. So, so I kind of touched on this just a little bit ago, but just a reminder that your marriage is also a gift to this world, to each other and to the world, to your kids, to your community, to everyone. ⁓ And so ⁓ your marriage is a ministry wherever the two of you go and do and work together. We can fulfill God’s will and work.

side by side, fulfilling the needs of others, helping people, showing hospitality, praying for others. Yeah. Allowing God to use our family however he desires with the gifts and talents and resources and time and possessions that he’s given us, blessed us with to grow his kingdom. And that starts at home. Yeah. If you don’t see your marriage as a gift, if you don’t see your family as a gift, we know what you’re seeing it like.

And what you’re seeing is something totally different and you’re not going to have a heart of love and compassion and excitement and joy for your family. What’s really cool. And it’s a bigger picture here is that every marriage is so unique that these gifts of marriages to the world ⁓ will operate in different ways. So our version of doing hospitality for another family looks different than.

friends of ours who do hospitality and just all the different ways that we can serve and love and pour out God’s goodness ⁓ and love to others will look unique per marriage, which I think is really cool, really powerful when you think about the body of Christ and just how there’s different functions. ⁓ Each individually members one of another, all being given gifts by the Holy Spirit to be used for the mutual building of the church for growing his kingdom. We talked about this in our book, Marriage After God.

We actually have stories of people we know and friends of ours and how they allow God to use them in their marriage. Not just to bless us, but to do extraordinary things. We actually, at the end of every episode, we like to share a marriage after God quote from our book. And so this ties right into it. And do you want to read it? Yeah. This is a, it says, your marriage is a gift, not just the two, to the two of you, but to this world. The impact your unity in marriage can have is unfathomable.

So you probably can’t even think about the ways in the future, whether in the short term near tomorrow or years down the road, what God is already working through you two as a couple. And that should give us excitement. It just takes a perspective shift and a yes. Yeah. A lot of yeses, little yeses that turn into big yeses. Cool. Well, that wraps up just today’s topic and we have the discussion questions here. So we’ll go through a few of these. Aaron, what was your perspective of

me when we first married. Well, I was very excited for various reasons, man. You know what I’m talking about. That was an exciting thing that I, when I say excited, like I was so stoked that you were going to be mine forever and that I wasn’t going to be alone anymore. And that we were going to start a journey figuring out what this thing marriage looks like. was, I was very excited. I did see you as a gift. I did see you as a gift as well. And mine,

⁓ was in the form, like you’ve touched on not feeling lonely anymore. And I just loved the idea of, of having you as my permanent best friend, because I already knew you were my best friend. And we had already operated like that for a couple of years, but all the intimacy and all the deep conversations and everything that I knew would go into just that, you know, behind closed doors being, being married, you know what it meant. ⁓ so excited. So here’s the question. How does it, how does your attitude toward me?

or your spouse, you’re listening, reflect how you perceive God’s gift. So, sorry, because you interrupted the question. How does your attitude towards your spouse reflect how you perceive God’s gift? so ⁓ in like receiving God’s gift, I think that we talked a lot about gratitude and when we’re grateful for what God has done and what he’s doing, ⁓ it pours over and into our hearts towards each other. And I’ve seen that.

The closer we draw to God and the more we spend time with him, I feel like it elevates our relationship and our interpersonal, like how we interact with each other. And my attitude always shifts. The more I spend time with God and spend time with you and we experience like good quality time, not hard quality time where it’s like we’re sifting through and wrestling with things. And they are good because I think that there’s a lot of trust building in those experiences too.

Yeah, I will say that I’ve had some negative attitudes towards you and haven’t ⁓ seen you every day as a gift. And I regret that. Well, I think we both have been there. And I think our perception of each other dramatically changes how we respond to each other and live out our days with each other. I’ve experienced it in the middle of praying, having one attitude and then shifting to another, being convicted by the Holy Spirit of like, really?

Like that’s your wife. And that’s actually something that I, if you think about it, something you can tell yourself, men and women, is to remind yourself, that’s my wife. Like no one else’s. There’s something really powerful about that possessive nature of realizing that the, ⁓ not ownership, but it’s kind of like an ownership, like you’re my wife. Exclusivity. It’s exclusive and it’s special.

There is no other. And being reminded by the Holy Spirit of that, it’s like, oh, there is no other. I need to figure this out. I need to humble myself. I need to take a step back. I need to reorient as we’ve been talking about. And for me, when I think about my negative attitude shifts and what’s going on in those times, when I need to step back and be humble is when I’m critical. When I see you through a lens of you didn’t do that like me or you didn’t do that good enough or how I would have wanted you to do it.

I become critical of you, of your character or how you operate. that should not have a place in my heart with you because you’ve proven time and time again that you are mine and you are what God Changes things when you say that. He’s mine. And you’ve shown a lot of growth. And you’re your own person. You’re independent, although we’re together and are unified. But I’m not you. You’re not me. you don’t want me to be you.

No way. That would be weird. What kind of things would your wife experience, I should say, what kind of things would your husband experience if you treated him as he is? You’re confusing me with the question. know. Read it as, because these are the questions from the book, so they’re reading it the same way. So just read it. Yeah. What kind of things would your wife experience if you treated her as the wife she is? Yeah. So if I treated you as a gift, I think you would experience

A lot of things. I think you’d experience a lot more joy, peace. ⁓ You’d probably feel really special. Lots of things that you probably really, really want. I will say something that I know for sure has been influenced by you is my confidence. Because you do cherish me, you do take care of me. I have grown in my confidence. Confidence of our love, confidence of who I am, confidence in Christ. Making you more shiny. You light up. You have more light. That was good.

When you said shiny, I thought of my forehead. But yeah, your version of shiny was more spectacular. Like a beauty. What other gifts have you received from God? I like this question because in the devotionals, you guys will be able to answer these more personal to you. And I think it’s good that the same way we recognize our gratefulness for our spouse, that we’re grateful to God for all the different gifts that he has given us. That we recognize that there’s more than just our spouse that he has given us as a gift, but like so much more.

Like you said earlier, our children. Yeah, was going to our children is a huge one. this I just was thinking the other day for this job we get to have. we didn’t plan this when we got married. That’s true. But here we are. Yeah. And I just think this is a really cool gift. And I want to recognize that that he didn’t have to give us this this life. He could have done something else with these microphones, these microphones, this camera. But it’s where we’re at. And I really enjoy it. And I’m thankful for that.

How can you and your spouse be a gift to others? So I love this because we talked about this today and I think just reflecting over, you know, our years of marriage, I think we’ve always, not always, because there’s definitely been times that we’ve pulled back and been more ⁓ introspective and more secluded to home. But we’ve been open to encouraging others and

We often… our home is always open. Our home is always open, ⁓ but our hearts, like just being able to sit with other couples and lead them closer to Christ. Spending quality time with them and just reminding them who they are in Christ. ⁓ An interesting one is often when we’re out and about with our children, ⁓ we always remind our kids that we’re lights in this world and the way we act and behave…

matters. That’s one way we try and encourage them to behave, know, hey, let’s not be crazy. But they are really good kids. And like when they sit and they’re respectful and they are honoring, it’s a light. Like often, I am going to brag about my kids a bit. People come up to me like, your kids are really well behaved. Like, wow, that’s amazing. And then there’s six of them. Like, that’s a surprising thing to many people. But it’s a ministry in itself just visibly

them seeing like, these kids love their mom and dad, their mom and love them, they’re all together, they enjoy each other, they’re having fun. It’s such a stark contrast than a lot of ⁓ images we get these days of family. And so I just, I love that. Showing the world a loving family is a ministry to the world. Yeah, yeah, that’s great. Okay, so at the end of the devotionals, there’s this call to action where we want to encourage couples to…

Draw closer to each other and closer to God through experience. this week we want you guys, we’re challenging you guys to view your spouse as the gift that they are. Treat them like the best gift you’ve ever received from God and thank him for them. Man, your wives will thank you. And receive your gift by giving them a hug and telling them verbally that they are a gift. Yeah, that’s a big deal. Let me pray for us.

Dear Lord, thank you so much for your beautiful gift of marriage. Thank you for the way that you’ve designed husbands and wives, man and woman. What a beautiful creation and a wild thing that you have ⁓ given to this world, life and light. we just pray, Lord, today that you would give us the perspective that we need to see our spouse as the gift that you have put into our lives. I pray that you would help us to receive one another in

gratitude. We pray that our hearts would be humble, that we would walk humbly and that we would receive each other and just pour out our love for each other. And like we talked about earlier, just cherish the gift that you have given us in marriage, that we would protect it and keep it ⁓ placed in a protected way and even boast about it, you know, at times. I pray, Lord, that this gift of marriage ⁓ would just become a

beautiful thing in our lives that we trust and rely on and that we can use to submit to you and ask you to work through us, to bless people in this world, to do your work, to do your will. And I just pray, Lord, for everyone listening right now that you would meet them where they are, remind them tenderly of who you are and of how you’re working in their lives. I pray that you would remind them and show them all the ways that their spouse is a gift.

and that we would keep our eyes open to those ways and that we would also affirm it in our spouse. We pray Lord that you would give us the right words to say and the opportunity to affirm our spouse that they are a gift. And we just pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for joining us on week four of the Marriage Devotional Series. We just pray that you continue with us. Again, hit that subscribe button, hit the like button, leave us a review or a comment.

And don’t forget to pick up your copies of Husband After God and Wife After God at shop.marriageaftergod.com. Look forward to having you next time.