The pitter patter of little feet broke up the quiet sanctuary, pounding above the praise and worship music playing from the sound system. At first, I was a little distracted by it; I wanted to complain, reminded of the many times my husband disrupted my prayer. The children were not being loud. They were just trying to play but also follow their parent’s instructions to be quiet as we prayed. Of course, it was really God using them to get me out of His way. He often needs to move me out of a religious mindset.
Running. The thought kept playing through my head as I tried to pray about marriages. Run to God. How often do we really run to Him? Usually it is only in our desperation that we come to Him. After we have tried everything within our power to handle the situation or problem. We try to show Him that we are capable, good stewards of our life. When all else fails then we run to Him for answers.
In our sin, we usually allow shame, guilt, and stubborn pride to cause us to run away from Him. We grow farther from Him instead of running to Him for forgiveness, seeking His grace to empower us to rise above our fleshly temptations. He calls to us, but like Adam and Eve we attempt to cover ourselves and hide from the One who has the ability to free us from ourselves.
As couples, we often do the same thing. That was the picture that was placed in my mind as we gathered together for prayer on marriage. We often run from our partner and from God when things are hard . When conflict arises in marriage or other intimate relationships, we run. We don’t press in and work through the things that bother us. We don’t try to see our part, it is much easier to blame our partner. We run to negative communication patterns of criticizing, stonewalling, defensiveness, and contempt making things worse.
When we run to our partner, we engage to resolve the distance, not allow it to grow bigger. When we confront problems we keep the problem from growing. When we talk with each other, instead of just at, we come to a deeper understanding; even if we don’t come to an agreement. We take the time to listen and see our partner; when we stop to see each other, we can remember:
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12
Our spouse, is not our enemy. The Bible says that two become one. Would you really want to be treated the way you are treating your spouse? Forget how they are acting towards you. You are responsible for your actions and reactions, not theirs. What if you ran to your spouse and out-loved them? You might find you get treated better also. Love covers a multitude of sins.
What if instead you ran to God with the problems? When we run to God, we take the time to allow God to see us (Because He always can), but more importantly we stop for us to really look at Him. We can begin to see things through the lens of His love. We can see ourselves more clearly as we allow Holy Spirit to speak to us about our part in conflicts instead of just focusing on the other person. What if we ran to God instead of head first into an argument? If before we discussed a possible conflict, we talked to God first?
Communication with God can only take place if we run to instead of away from the problem.
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