Fighting For A Marriage Of Peace In A World Of Stress
Fighting For A Marriage Of Peace In A World Of Stress
By Bradley Bennett
Is it possible to have a marriage of peace when there’s so much to worry about in our world? From the bills, to the medical reports, or the family drama, there’s no end of things that can bring stress and anxiety into our marriage.
It can seem overwhelming, but we are called to have a marriage filled with peace. To be centered on the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.
It may seem like a pipe-dream in today’s stressed-out world, but I wholeheartedly believe we can experience this peace within our marriage. We can take actionable steps to create an environment where worry, anxiety, and stress can’t stick around.
It’s possible, but a marriage of peace is something we must fight for. It doesn’t just magically appear one morning.
Amanda and I found this out the hard way. Today, I want to share with you how we are fighting for peace in our marriage and the story that brought us there.
The first step for us, was to understand that we were empowered, by God, to have a marriage of peace.
Your Marriage Is Not Captive To Stress and Anxiety
Stress and anxiety are killers in marriage. Together, they are leading causes of disease, death, and depression, but one of the most dangerous things they cause is emotional bankruptcy
They eat away at our emotional margin until we have nothing left for our spouse. Being filled with stress means there is little or no room for us to also be filled with love.
While stress and anxiety take away the margin needed to love well, peace gives us more of it. Adding peace to our marriage starts with acknowledging the fact that we have the power to create it.
You see, in Matthew 18, Jesus explains that we have the authority to choose what enters our marriage,
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ~ Matthew 18:18
We’ve been given the power to bind up and loose whatever in our marriage. This means that anything affecting our marriage is there because we allow it.
I often hear people say that they “just deal” with anxiety or that they are just an anxious person and it’s “just how they are”. This is nothing more than a victim mentality and a lie.
Living a stressed-out, anxious life is a choice, not a condition.
We’ve been given the authority and power to remove those things from our life. Unfortunately, that means absolutely zero if we don’t use them. I know this because I struggled at the start of our marriage with stress and anxiety.
Some of you may know our story, but the day after we returned from our honeymoon I went into work, was called into my bosses office and was told that I was being let go. This instantly threw our me and our marriage into a world of financial confusion, stress, and anxiety.
I felt like life was spinning wildly and I had zero control over it.
This early episode in our marriage caused plenty of friction, but it forced us to learn how to fight against anxiety and establish our marriage on peace. It took us some time, but we found that the greatest weapon we had in our fight was in fact, prayer.
Fighting With Prayer
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” ~ Philippians 4:6-7
In the scripture above, the writer, Paul, actually commands believers to not be anxious about anything. Practically this means to stop anxiously stressing over the money, the medical report, the family plans, or any other number of things.
Instead, we are to take those worries and present them to God through prayer with thanksgiving. It’s a complete 180 of the heart to thank God ahead of time for the solution to the problem. To approach the issue with the spirit that no matter what, He is still good and will take care of us.
As Jimmy Evans puts it,
“You’re either a prayer or a worrier.”
In my own life, when I presented God with my worries about the finances and future of our family, I was able to rest knowing that he is good and will provide. This brought the peace, and emotional margin, I needed to love Amanda well even though things were still crazy.
The Power Of A Praying Marriage
The beautiful thing about marriage is that you are never fighting alone. You always have someone in the foxhole beside you. For a while, I took this for granted and didn’t include Amanda in my fights.
During my prayer times, I would give things to God, but I would never loop Amanda in on what I was praying for. This caused two major problems:
- Amanda was being kept in the dark about the areas where I needed encouragement the most.
- I was not actively fighting alongside my wife to drive anxiety from her life.
I was fighting my battles alone even though Amanda desired to stand with me in the midst of them. From then on, we’ve been committed to not fighting as individuals but as a marriage.
Each day we try to let each other know one thing we are praying about and then take a moment to pray together. They’re never elaborate, P.H.D level prayers, but simple requests given with thanksgiving.
Praying together has helped bring a new level of spiritual peace and intimacy to our marriage. We’re establishing God’s peace in our hearts together by fighting daily and doing the needed work.
Peace Beyond Understanding
Your marriage is destined and designed to have God’s peace resting on it. In our crazy world, it’s so easy to allow anxiety, stress, and worry to creep in, but they can only stay if we allow them to.
Marriage is the ultimate team where we fight alongside our spouse, in prayer, to bring peace even when it’s hard. I’m not saying that you will never experience hard times, I know that Amanda and I experience them all the time. But you won’t allow the stress and anxiety from those times snowball into bigger issues.
If your marriage is not filled with peace right now, don’t continue to believe that it’s not possible. Decide today that you will pick up the authority and power you’ve been given and begin fighting for a marriage of peace.
For when you do, you will experience one of the greatest gifts in marriage, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.