Day 239: Reading Up on Marriage Again

There are (at least) two things I’ve found that have the potential to really impact our marriage: prayer and education. The first seems obvious to me and will be obvious to anyone who thinks that Christianity is true. Prayer is a major means through which the God of the universe works. He wants us to bring the concerns of our marriage to him in prayer and wants to make changes in our marriage on the basis of those prayers. As such, I want to us to take as much advantage of that means as we can.

The other one seems obvious too: knowing certain things about marriage is a prerequisite to having a good marriage. In light of that, I’ve read up on marriage since 365 Acts of Love began. I read Timothy Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage, I’ve listened to sermons on marriage, we’ve been (slowly!) working through the Love and Respect Conference CDs, I’ve kept up with a few marriage blogs, and a few days ago, I read some John Piper articles on marriage. And for my 239th act of love, I read three marriage articles from Focus on the Family, one on commitment, one on protecting one’s marriage from infidelity, and one on fostering spiritual intimacy with one’s spouse.

I understand that possessing propositional knowledge about what makes for a good marriage is not sufficient for having a good marriage, but it certainly seems necessary.

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Day 235: Special Prayer Session #2

For my 235th act of love, I completed my second special session of prayer. I decided that I’ll make these once-a-week sessions 15 minutes long. That’s it–just 15 minutes per week dedicated to praying for our marriage. At least it’s a start. And at least it’s consistent.

In my prayer, I first thought of qualities of yours that I really appreciate, using Proverbs 31:10-31 as a guide, then I thanked God for you and for instilling those qualities in you. Then I prayed through Ephesians 5:25-33, asking God to make me the kind of husband who’d be willing to sacrifice his life for his wife (i.e., you!) and the kind of husband who sacrifices himself on a daily basis for the purpose of his wife’s success. I’d say this was a good start to my new tradition.

Day 230: Commitment to Prayer

Consistent prayer for our marriage is one of the most important things I can do to change our marriage for the better. And such change is the purpose of 365 Acts of Love. Accordingly, it’s very curious that I don’t consistently pray for our marriage.

To remedy this, I’m committing to having a special session of prayer for our marriage once a week, which sessions will serve as acts of love for the blog. I’ll keep this up at least until 365 is finished. Having said that, I intend to pray for our marriage every day, but the special sessions will be once a week.

For this week’s prayer session, I prayed (among other things) that God would make you well. You apparently caught my sickness.

 

Day 164: A Fresh Start

I’ve recently lost sight of project 365. Although I’ve consistently done acts of love for you, my mind’s been focused on work. This hasn’t been bad, but necessary. Still, I need to renew my commitment to 365. I’m doing so by taking you back to the beginning. On day 2, I committed to buying you flowers every week. So far, you’ve made sure that I’ve stuck by that commitment. On Saturday, in continuation of that commitment and as a symbol of the commitment I made to you through 365, I bought you flowers. Although it wasn’t an act extraordinaire, if I consistently buy you flowers, over time it will have a compounding effect on our relationship. So, too, will this blog, if I remain committed to it.