Recently my body told me it wasn’t as strong as it used to be, so I joined a gym. The trainer smiled and reassured me that I could get a lot of my old self back and promptly started me on an exercise program to strengthen my core…you know, those muscles in our back, stomach, shoulders and sides that support our heads, arms, legs, fingers, toes. So when we build our core, we strengthen our entire body.
As I was soaking away my aches and pains in a hot bath, it occurred to me there’s a lot of similarity between building our bodies and strengthening our marriages. There are core or foundational ingredients that all of the other aspects of our marriages are built upon. Some of these are faith, commitment, unconditional love, safety, trust, and one that we often overlook personal responsibility, because no marriage will ever be stronger than its weakest spouse.
We need to be intentionally working to become the best man or woman God wants us to be. When our personal responsibility is weak, we blame our spouses for the condition of our marriages. We think if he would just do that or if she didn’t do this…healthy personal responsibility means we stop blaming our spouses and look at our own lives first. Jesus asks the question, “Why do you look at the speck in your spouse’s eye but don’t notice the log that’s in your own?” So we build stronger marriages by asking ourselves, “How am I contributing positively or negatively to making our marriage the best it can be?” Or “What are some areas I need to strengthen in my personal life that will make a positive impact in our marriage? Paul David Tripp declared, “I am my biggest marital problem.” So if you want a better marriage, ask God to help you to become a better you.
