I want to share with you a few paragraphs from the book ‘The Marriage Builder” I think It’s important to put these before I move on and show you the example of these truths in my own marriage and what God has done with us in knowing them.
“In explaining Spirit Oneness, my primary focus is on each partners individual relationship with God and how that spiritual relationship reaches into a person’s needs for security and significance.
“..if the foundation of Spirit Oneness is mutual dependence on the Lord for personal needs, then the foundation of Soul Oneness is a mutual commitment to minister to one another’s personal needs.”
Although my husband and I are not responsible to supply things to each other to make us feel significant or make us feel secure, we do have a responsibility to each other in helping one another by giving and ministering to each other the love of Christ.
A few years after my marriage and before this book came across my path the Lord spoke to me about who Eve was. He said to me “Eve was not created for the pleasure of Adam. She was not created to fill voids in Adams life. She was not created to be his servant. She was not created to change Adam or to help him in His relationship with God. Or make him a better man. She was created to be apart of Adam. To uplift Adam. To help him. To support him. To partner with him. To create with him. To walk with him all the days of his life.”
I could understand this only to a small degree. The Lord was showing me that as I women and a wife you are not your husband’s keeper and he is not yours. But for the first time ever I understood who I was as his wife. When we started reading this book I understood even more. That in order to be one with my husband I must minister to him as his wife. Not worship him, not even submit to him, but to minister to him. What would that look like?
My husband works in the world sometimes all day. There are times he comes home more spiritually exhausted than physically or mentally. As soon as I notice it I make sure I remind him of what our Father has told us. Where He is taking us and what the word says about un-godly people. I am ready at anytime ready to minister truth to my husbands weary heart.
Sometimes my husband struggles with insecurity. He has dreams that God has placed in his heart and he sometimes feels inadequate to do them or feels like he wants to give up. I am ready to sow love and encouragement in him. Reminding him that God is the author and finisher of our lives and that His will for him will come to pass in His timing. To keep the faith and know that it will be through Him that theses things are accomplished. I always want my husband to know how proud I am of him and how far he’s gotten. I point out how much he has already done and the progress he has already made, proof of God’s provision and will.
To be one with our spouses we must be ready to minister to them even when we are not happy with one another. This is by far the hardest part of soul oneness. When things are not going well it is easy to leave ministry and step into manipulation. All of a sudden when your feelings are crushed you withdraw and refuse to speak to your spouse until you get an apology. You withhold sex from him or her because your don’t like how they have been treating you recently,.You put them in the “dog house” and send them to the couch to sleep. You refuse to allow them back in your bed until they are ready to comply. You withhold telling the truth about your feelings afraid of being hurt and let down.
All of these things are manipulation tactics. But we don’t see them that way because the world has taught us it is normal, acceptable or okay. And while its okay once again to draw boundaries, we are not to use the law of boundaries to control or punish one another. God calls us to be of the Word and not of the World. He call us to love like Christ loves the Church and to respect and honor each other. Nothing against Paul but these two scriptures in Ephesians should go for both sexes and not just penned to the individual ones:
“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord.”
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
One day while we were heading out to go shopping I was highly upset with my husband. To control my reactions I become very silent. I shut my mouth when I’m hurting because I am a feisty little women and my mouth gets me into trouble. As I was praying on the way to the mall asking God to heal my heart and forgive me, the Lord spoke to me when I asked Him what to do about the situation. He said “Love as Christ loves the Church” He said it to my 5 times. So I looked over at my husband and apologized and forgave him as well. I chucked what he did as far as the east was from the west and moved on. This is the art of ministry in our marriages that creates Soul Oneness.
The more you sow into Soul oneness with your spouse the more your hearts will change toward one another. You may be the only one doing the sowing but remember that every seed will come to life. But what seed are you sowing? The law of sowing in reaping is inevitable. So try to start habits of sowing through ministry and not manipulation. Of course there is SO much more in the book, so again I will put it down below. Share with other couples you know even if they aren’t struggling. We all need these truths in our marriages and it’s best to know them now than too late.
May God be with you, keep you and bless you.
J.S
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