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The 4 Beings that Turn a Wedding into a Marriage

September 15, 2014 By bwatson Leave a Comment

Danielle's WeddingOver the past few years, I have had the privilege of performing several wedding ceremonies.  Some of the couples, I have known while most of them I have not known.  Each one has been special in some way or another.  Primarily I have been a part of weddings at Garrison Gardens, which is owned by my good friends, Chuck & Karen Guilbert.  I really appreciate them allowing me to be a part of the weddings that need an officiant. 

In each wedding, so much time and effort goes into the planning of that special day.  Buying the dress, planning for the reception, getting the caterer, the flowers, the photographer, and the list can go on and on and on…  When my daughter got married, we were told that we did not have enough time to buy a dress by one of the dress shops.  I was appalled that they would not take my money just because we were not buying the dress 9 months to a year before the actual date.  The days leading up to the wedding usually are filled with stress and chaos, but also fun and joy.  The anticipation of the big event is enough to drive the sanest person a little crazy along the way.  Also, no matter how much you plan there are things that can happen that you cannot control…like at my son’s wedding when it rained what seemed like buckets of water for several hours leading up to the big event.  We had to move inside because of how much rain fell that day.  Even though we were not able to have the event outside as planned, my son and daughter-in-law are still married.  You see, the event is nice and pretty.  It can be exciting and fun.  It should be reverent and meaningful.  But it is an event.

I was talking to a couple leading up to their big event not too long ago.  She was saying how she wanted the ceremony to go right since there had been previous marriages in their backgrounds.  She actually stated that the track record of the previous ceremonies was not good. (She was referring to the previous divorces.)  I told her that the ceremony would go very well.  It is not the wedding ceremony that makes the marriage but rather the effort in the relationship.  Here are four areas of your relationship that will help insure the marriage will last.

  • Being Trustworthy.  Marriages have to be built on trust.  When the trust is broken, the relationship is very difficult to mend.  Are you honest in all areas of your life?  Do you have any secret compartments?  Are you willing to allow your spouse into the deepest regions of your soul?  These questions help you understand the importance of being trustworthy.  Remember Trust is earned.  Your spouse is not going to just trust you.  You have to maintain the trust you have earned and continue to work on earning more.
  • Being Friends.  Friendship is very important to the marriage relationship.  As friends, you continue to desire to spend time together and have fun together.  Do you think about what you can do together?  Do you havCaleb's Weddinge your spouse’s interests in mind when you make plans?  Do you only want to go the the places that you like and do only what you want to do?  These questions will help you grow your friendship.
  • Being Lovers.  I think that most couples when they get married think that this area of their marriage will never wane.  I have read and heard about this challenge that has been given to couples for years.  Put a marble in a jar every time you have sex the first year of your marriage.  Then take a marble out every time after your first anniversary.  It normally takes 2 to 3 years to empty the jar.  When I tell couples that in pre-marital counseling, they are shocked.  This area of your marriage has to be worked on and not taken for granted.  Do you plan time to be sexual?  Do you take your sexual relationship for granted?  Are you always too tired?  Do you consider your spouse’s needs?  Are you always just wanting to be spontaneous?  Take time to plan time for your sexual lives.  Make a date.
  • Being Teammates.  The Bible says that “two shall become one.”  This does not mean that either spouse loses his/her identity, but rather the relationship is built on the unity of the two.  Both partners should be better because of the marriage than apart from each other.  Is that true for you?  Do you feel like you are at odds with one another?  Are you going in the same direction?  Do you feel your mate is your enemy or your teammate?  Realize that your spouse is not your enemy, but rather Satan is the enemy of marriage as well as God and you.  He wants to separate you so that he can win a battle.  He’s already lost the war; he’s just trying to get as many casualties as possible.

The wedding is a very special event in your relationship.  Yes, a great deal of planning, spending, fretting, and working go into the big day.  It is the work that goes into all the days that follow it that are even more important.  That work is always rewarding.

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Bradley D. Watson, BCBT
Directed Path Ministries

After spending more than 25 years on church staffs, God has allowed me to take the experiences and knowledge that I gained to develop a Biblical Counseling ministry.  The basis of this ministry is to allow God’s Word to shine on the main issues in peoples’ lives in order to bring His resolutions to problems.

Providing Hope in Troubled Times

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Friendship In Marriage

September 10, 2014 By bwatson Leave a Comment

IntimacyMost of the couples that come into my office are in major conflict with one another.  They tell me that they fight about everything.  One couple even told me that they fight 24/7; that there was no peace in their lives at all.  I questioned the truth of that statement, yet I knew that they really believed what they were saying.  When couples get to the point that they feel that they fight all the time, they have forgotten how to be friends.  Friendship is another area of intimacy that is important to the strength of marriage. 

Friendship is a level of intimacy that many people neglect in their marriage.  They allow the stresses of finances, work, children, and other issues to crowd out the need to relate with one another as friends.  They forget to have fun together.

Here are some questions that you need to ask about your marriage.

  1. What do you have in common?  This element is very important in developing your friendship.  Remember when you were in grade school when you were learning to how make friends?  You would want to be around the kids that like the same things that you liked.  You would want to play with whomever wanted to play the same games you did.  You would talk about the same TV shows or music, etc.  When you learned that you had things in common, you would be friends.  That same principle worked when you were dating your spouse.  You had to develop a friendship based on what you had in common.  Remember talking on the phone for hours?  Remember always having something to say to one another?  As a couple, you have to return to those days.
  2. What do you do to have fun?  (not that kind of fun)  Seriously, what do you like to do together?  Do you go to the movies together?  Do you dance?  DancingMaybe you work in the yard for fun.  Having fun together is very important.  I realize that you might have hobbies that do not include your spouse.  Everyone needs to have friends.  But do those friends take the place of your spouse?  Do you have time to spend with just your husband or wife to have fun together away from the stresses of life.
  3. When was your last date?  A few weeks ago, I wrote on dating as a couple.  You can find it here.  Remember before you were married and the fun you would have on dates?  My wife and I used to just go to the park and swing at times. (We were in college without a lot of money.)  We looked for things to do that made us laugh together and relax.  You probably did things like that as well.  When was the last time you just went out to enjoy yourselves?
  4. Do you laugh together?  Laughing is very therapeutic.  Laughing connects you together.  Do you find the same things funny?  Do you enjoy the same types of comedy?
  5. Do you put aside your likes for your spouse’s?  I know that as a couple we do not have everything in common.  I would eat steak and potatoes every night, while my wife likes sushi and different pastas.  I do not like a lot of slap stick comedy, but my wife does.  I would watch football no matter who’s playing, but she only likes to watch it when she likes one of the teams.  As a couple we must put aside our likes some of the time for the benefit of our friendship.

As you answered these questions, the level of your friendship should be evident to you.  It is important that you work on your friendship by looking for things that will build your friendship.  Friendship builds intimacy in your marriage.

What are some ways you build your friendship with your spouse?

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Bradley D. Watson, BCBT
Directed Path Ministries

After spending more than 25 years on church staffs, God has allowed me to take the experiences and knowledge that I gained to develop a Biblical Counseling ministry.  The basis of this ministry is to allow God’s Word to shine on the main issues in peoples’ lives in order to bring His resolutions to problems.

Providing Help in Desperate Times

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Friendship in Marriage

October 6, 2012 By bwatson Leave a Comment

The past couple of days I have been writing on communication, which is probably the most common issue that I see in my office while counseling couples. Another common problem is that couples that are struggling do not ever have any fun together. Now I am not talking about their sexual relationship. I am talking about just enjoying life together and having fun together. Their friendship is lacking. Each of the partners has friends that they like to have fun with. Guys liking to get together to watch football, go hunting, play golf, etc. while the women go shopping, go to the movies, or whatever together. The couple just does not spend any recreational time together.
I am not against having friends that we do things together with. Matter of fact, I encourage it. I believe that our relationships with others can enhance our relationship with our spouse. What I do I have a problem with is that we spend more time with our other friends and not have any time with our best friend. I know a lot of guys who think they can hang out with their buddies while their wife is at home with the kids and then expect her to respond favorably to his romantic advances. Most of the time, his expectations are not met.
One of the purposes of marriage is to meet the companion need. I know that Adam was the only person when God created Eve, but the principle is still applicable. We need our mate to be our companion, not just our sexual partner.
How do we accomplish this? How do we maintain a friendship with our mate throughout our marriage? A couple of things come to mind as I think about this subject.
1. Date regularly. Many of the marriage books recommend dating once per week. I know that can be expensive, yet can be very profitable for our marriages. I recommend doing things on dates that are not that expensive like going on picnics if you can take a lunch date. If you have children, maybe you can find another couple to switch out for childcare.
2. Find a common hobby. So many people like to do things that their mate does not like to do. I am not telling anyone not to hunt, fish, play golf, shop, or anything else their mate doesn’t like. What I am saying that there needs to be a common hobby; something that both of you would like to do together.
3. Do what your mate wants to do. I read about an avid golfer who was asked to play on a very exclusive course on day, but he told his friends no because he was going to the Art Museum. The response was “I didn’t know you were into art.” The golfer said, “I’m not but my wife is and I’m into my wife.”
These are just a few suggestions. There are many others that help keep the friendship going such as laughing together, touching daily, and then again just talking to each other.
Being friends is very important when you are on the journey of your lifetime called marriage. It really makes the journey go a lot easier.

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Summary of Real Marriage

April 5, 2012 By bwatson Leave a Comment

I am always looking at books on marriage to read and evaluate for use in my ministry. There are so many good books out there on marriage and more are being written seems like every day. The last book that I read was Real Marriage by Mark and Grace Driscoll. What a book! I realize that many people have written comments about the book, some have been very positive while others have not been. I decided to read the book with an open mind so that I could truly hear what I needed to hear while I read the book. Even though I did not agree with everything the Driscolls said in the book, the main points on marriage, friendship, romance and the sexual relationship are points that I can totally agree.
The emphasis of Real Marriage is the relationship and the work that relationship takes for a marriage to be successful. We live in a day and time when marriages fail all the time, therefore it is time that pastors make the effort to teach some very practical applications to scripture in the areas of life that impact a marriage greatly. Mark and Grace do just that. I think that one area of the book that truly will help couples is the chapter on friendship. Too many times the husband or the wife or both do not include the other in their recreational activities. Most couples do not have a great deal of time to spend together and then they add stress to their relationship by not recreating together. Now I do not believe that the couple should spend every spare minute together, but if you do not spend time together recreationally the friendship within the marriage will falter. When that happens, the marriage begins to falter. It is true that the husband needs to have guy friends and the wife needs to have girl friends. But the best friend needs to be each other. I remember several years hearing John Maxwell talk about how he told one of his golfing buddies that he could not play gold on a certain day because he was going to an art museum. The buddy replied “I didn’t know you were into art.” Maxwell then said, “I’m not but my wife is and I’m into my wife.” I can personally vouch for the fact a museum can be fun when you go with you wife. I thought that the chapters of the book on the man’s role in the relationship and the woman’s role were very well written and concise with biblical principles to use in the marriage. I believe that when men and women understand the biblical role set out before them, their marriage relationship will improve immensely. Our society has so devalued the differences in gender and blurred the lines so much that we have lost sight of the fact that God created male and female in His image. Each gender reflects the nature of God and when put together, they reveal the image which God intended from the very beginning.

I thought that I might share some of my thoughts about what I disagreed with but I realized that it might detract from the fact that I truly enjoyed reading the book and agreed with the majority of it. I have read some of the scathing reviews of the book. I guess that I did not read this book with the same attitude of others, because I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good book to read for some very practical help in their marriage. I will let you determine if the book is worth recommending to others.

Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.  Eph. 5:33

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A Testimony of Faith

February 8, 2010 By bwatson Leave a Comment

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the home of a couple that I would consider one of the best friends in my life.  We have been friends for the past 17 years and our children have been close to the same age.  We have been on double dates together, eaten in each other’s homes and even gone on several church trips together.  Our friendship has gone through many different stages over the years: yet each time we get together, there is a connection that bridges any gap that has been caused by our schedules, our family events, or even differences of opinions.  I know that the connection is only attributed to the love we have for each other and the relationship with Christ that surpasses all of our other relationships.

I want to share with you this couple’s testimony of what God is doing in their lives.  It was such an honor to be in their home Saturday night even though they are experiencing some very difficult times.  Some of you who read my musings will know this couple while many of you will not.  Knowledge of the couple will not enhance their testimony other than to be able to pray for them by name.  I am writing about Richard and Cindy Hodde.  Cindy has been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) a few months ago.  I have read some about the disease but I am not sure I still understand all there is to know about ALS.  What I do know is that Cindy is at the point of being bedridden.  She has lost a tremendous amount of weight and most of her physical strength.  I also know that there is no known cure for ALS which can be disheartening.  Lisa and I along with Caleb spent about ninety minutes just talking and remembering a great deal of our families’ past.  We ended the conversation with Cindy sharing her faith with us concerning her disease and her prognosis.  I was totally blown away.  I talk all the time about living by faith.  I encourage people to “Be still and know that I am God…Ps. 46:10” in my office almost every day.  Cindy shared with us that she was challenged with thoughts about God from the very beginning of this episode in her life.  She questioned if she truly believed the stories in the Bible of Jesus healing the lame, blind, and lepers.  She questioned if she truly believed that Jesus resurrected Lazarus from the grave after being dead for four days.  She came to the realization that these were not just stories, but they were actual facts of life that has taken place through the work of God who loves greater than anyone can ever love.  She was then led to the verse, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”(Heb. 13:8) As she grappled with her beliefs of what was said in the Bible, she concluded that the Bible is just as true today as when it was written.  Therefore, if God healed in scripture than He still heals today.  She is living with the hope of the fact that God loves her so much that Jesus redeemed her for His purposes.  Even when the doctors tell her that there is not much hope, she focuses on the truth of who God is to her and the fact that He is still at work in her life.  Knowing God to her is not just from reading a book about the Bible or listening to a sermon about God; her knowledge of God is from her experience of faith that she is living every day.  Every day as she talks to people, she is always sharing her faith in the Living Savior who is at work in her physical life as well as her spiritual life.  Thank you Cindy and Richard for allowing me to experience your faith this past weekend.

I want to challenge you just as I have been challenged to live in faith in a God who is very much alive and working just as He has done from the beginning of all creation.  No matter what the situation is that you have encountered, God is there and is working.  Let me ask you, “Who is God to you?”  Have you experienced Him today?

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