In my years of working with couples and talking about their marriages, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone declare that they’re leaving their spouse because I deserve to be happy in my marriage. God wants me to be happy, doesn’t he? Now, I understand the root of their reasoning. We serve a good God who wants to shower good things on us. Why wouldn’t you want us to be happy to have a good marriage instead of a miserable one? God wants us to experience the abundant life. Add to that the power of our belief in the American dream of healthy, wealthy and happy and we have some faulty thinking. And unfortunately, this is one of the greatest lies the devil whispers into the ears of couples today. When you feel unhappy in your marriage, what do you do? You start making a list of all the things your spouse is doing or has done that upset you. You begin to think of all the other people that seem happier than you do. You begin to punish your spouse by fighting with them or emotionally withdrawing from them. You start to keep an internal tally of all the things that your spouse has done to hurt you. Stop. Are those actions from the Holy Spirit? How can we say God wants me to be happy when we’re disobeying Him and his Word? Isaiah, the Prophet, knew of this problem thousands of years ago when he shared. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. Deserving happiness is just another form of selfishness and could be the most dangerous threat to your marriage.
God commands us to die, to self, to think of others more highly than ourselves, to transform our minds daily. So when you start serving your spouse and seeing how you can meet his or her emotional, spiritual and physical needs, and when you start to make him or her happy, you’re going to be amazed how God will transform your mind and your marriage. And it just might help you to be happy.
