Since many of us are evaluating and examing our lives at the New Year, it’s a great time to have a new attitude towards our marriage (but so is everyday!).
It is easy to fall into a routine and stop expressing our love and gratitude for one another. So many times we forget to be grateful for all the God has blessed us with as wives. We may even being carrying unforgiveness or bitterness towards our spouse, sometimes we hold on to it so long that we forget why we have animosity in the first place, yet we still resent them.
Our attitudes are a result of our thoughts toward our spouse. Our actions are quick to follow those thoughts and attitudes.
Eph 4:22-24 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. NIV
I like the way the Message Bible says it also:
Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything—and I do mean everything—connected with that old way of life has to go. It’s rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life—a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you.
I really love that part: “as God accurately repoduces His character in you.”
Let me ask you…what would your husband say about your attitude? How do you suppose he speaks of you when you are not around? And what do you think his friends say about you behind your back?
Yes, I know- OUCH…it brings me to my knees right there next to you.
I want to have the kind of attitude that is well spoken of. That I hold to my convictions and really put off that old self so that I can be new in the attitude of my mind and His character is being reproduced in me. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it.
It certainly does not mean we are perfect, but that is also no excuse not to examine our hearts and see what kind of attitudes we have been projecting in our marriages towards our husbands.
So I leave you with this question:
“How can you change your attitude to show your husband that your faith in God and His Word is real…without using words?”
I’m praying for our marriages.
