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How to Have a Happy Marriage
you have the confidence of knowing that God is for you. And,
"If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31).
The next thing you need to do is face the reality of
marriage. Come out of the fantasy world of Hollywood ro–
mance. Come into the real world of marriage where real
people through hard work and perseverance build real mar–
riages that last. Be realistic about marriage.
Marriage was not intended to be like a bowl of peaches
and cream, but like a bed of roses. I am talking about a real
bed of roses-you know the kind with beautiful, sweet
smelling flowers and sharp, painful thorns. Marriage was
meant to have anniversaries and adversities-for
it
is
through overcoming adversities that we grow and learn.
Look at marriage as an institution of higher learning
whose founder and chancellor is Almighty God. When he
brought the first couple into his institution, he gave them the
goal to achieve total oneness through learning from each
other and a lot of hard work (Gen.
2:24).
In the process
(through the curriculum of
marriage) they-and others
since-learn many lessons
and have many tests to de-
Y.
velop individual and collec-
tive character. Each anniver-
our
sary marks a graduation
from one level of growth to
another-from one level of
challenge and difficulty to
the next.
The goal of God's insti–
tution of marriage is to teach
husbands and wives the
supreme lesson of the uni–
verse: oneness through self-
lessness.
happiness is not
dependent on what
your mate or anyone
else does or does not
do. It
is
dependent on
what you do.
Love is the secret of true happiness, and marriage is the
foremost place
to
learn it. The deeper you learn that supreme
lesson of giving-yes, even the hard part of giving when your
mate will not-the more you
will
grow and the happier you
will
be.