Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Ephesians 5:22, 25

“Love makes the world go round” is a cute adage that is simple in its message but deficient in explaining exactly how that works.  Love is as the poet says a “mysterious thing” and something that is both fleeting and enduring. Love has the capacity to satisfy the soul like a gourmet meal or it can starve the one who receives only crumbs.

Let me cut to the chase here folks.  How would you describe your relationship with your spouse? Would you give it a thumb up or a thumb down?  I don’t mean is everything going great right now because truth is, almost every marriage has a few pot holes every now and then.  What I am asking is this – is your marriage on solid footing?  Is the foundation of your spousal relationship solid?

If you cannot say “yes it is,” then let me encourage you today to begin the process of evaluating why. The decision to begin to build a solid foundation for your marriage may be an individual one, but to make it happen takes team work.

Taking the necessary steps to construct, restore, or repair a damaged marriage must begin with determining to love your spouse even though they may be behaving in an unloving way.  Let me issue a caveat here – I am not suggesting that you should accept abusive behavior in the name of love, and that includes physical, verbal, or emotional abuse. But I am suggesting that you live the truth that love is not primarily an emotion. It is a decision in the biblical sense.  So determine to honor your covenant vows to love your spouse through the thick and thin of life.

Next, determine to be honest and transparent with your spouse. This will require a generous amount of trust.  Some information will be hard to share and the fear of being judged can be a tremendous weight.  Press on anyway.  If not initially, your spouse will in time see that your love for him/her outweighs the hurt, because the goal in being honest with one another is to begin to build accountability, which ultimately leads to trust.

When trust is an integral part of the marriage relationship then you are able to overcome those things that previously were stumbling blocks.  In effect you are being equipped to demonstrate love in the biblical sense. Friends, your spouse deserves the best you can give not the left over crumbs.

That is a transforming truth.