A Force At Work

Today I was reading "Intimacy Ignited" again and I have to blog about this part. It was discussing how men sometimes demand sex and women often deny sex. We're all guilty of that accusation. And how our marriages can fall apart when we don't even know its happening. Here are some scenarios.

1.) Last night you made love, this morning you can't stand each other.
2.) You talk but say nothing, touch but feel nothing. Feel like strangers.
3.) You know you hurt your spouse but you don't care.

I've experienced all of these, in the past week no less! Of course I blame myself, the hormones, or DH himself. But as the authors stated in this book, those things are caused by another force at work. That force is Satan. He is out to destroy marriage and these scenarios are examples of how he does it. God gave us the gift of sex to make our marriage unbreakable but Satan perverts sex and uses it in many different ways to destroy our marriages. By blaming anyone or anything other than Satan for these scenarious is only helping him to ruin our marriage. We need to look at things differently. We often think oh well that's just the way marriage is. Not true, it doesn't have to be that way! Guys notoriously complain about married life and I challenged DH to say positive things about it around his friends, (which he gladly does because it always gets attention). Now his friends think we're always "gettin freaky" in unusual places. Apparently bragging about your sex life is how convinces them marriage isn't so bad. At the wedding we went to a month ago DH was saying how great marriage is and how happy he is and one guy said "wow I don't think I've ever actually heard someone talk like that about marriage before". By presenting the positive to others it also helps us to focus on the positive things. I encourage all of you that are married to do the same. Challenge either to say only good things about your marriage to friends and family, it really makes a difference.

There is one thing repeated in the book that bugs me. Actually I've read it in the bible several times too and it always bothers me. The book says God designed sex to produce life. Oh the old "be fruitful and multiply", "children are God's blessing on marriage" sayings! Well how come our sex doesn't create life, how come we can't be fruitful and multiply, is our marriage not blessed because we don't have children? Hannah, Rachael, Elizabeth, and Sarah must have all felt the same way.

Last Sunday this quote from the sermon stuck out to me and I want to leave you with it.

"God is a God of action....And when He acts, He always acts in Love".