INVESTING IN YOUR MARRIAGE.

The Marriage Box
Most people get married believing that marriage is a beautiful box full of all the things
they have longed for; companionship, intimacy, friendship etc. The truth is that
marriage at the start is an empty box, you must put something before you can take
anything out. There is no love in marriage, love is in people, and people put love in
marriage. There is no romance in marriage unless you put it in. As couple, you must
learn the art, and form the habit of giving, loving, serving, praising, of keeping the
box full. If you take out more than you put in, the box will soon be empty. – Anonymous.
Introduction.
Investing in your marriage is about voluntarily endowing it with efforts to improve your
relationship, with the expectation of future benefits. It can take different forms but
it is all about selflessly nurturing your marriage spiritually, emotionally and
physically towards making it better. A lot of marriages are unfulfilling because the
partners have not invested into such relationships, only to be expecting dividends in the
future.
Following are some of the areas to focus on, depending on the perceived need of your
spouse and your marriage;

SPIRITUAL INVESTMENT.
As a child of God, one of the most important areas of investment in your marriage should
be in the area of putting efforts into making your spouse grow spiritually. This is
because however high you go in your walk with God, a spiritually immature spouse can
conveniently be used by the devil to pull you down.
Areas in which you may need to invest spiritually may include prayers, joint scripture
study, encouraging holy living etc.
Investing in the spiritual growth of your spouse can sometimes be challenging especially
if the background or other circumstances such as the friends kept, by your spouse are
militating against growth.

QUALITY TIME.
It is often difficult for a good number of ministers of God to find time to spend with
spouse and other family members. You are either on the mountain, praying or ministering
somewhere. As much as those activities are important however, there is need to create
time to be with your family. Schedule regular date nights or weekend getaways to
reconnect and enjoy each other’s company without distractions. Such investments will
contribute significantly to bonding between you and your spouse.

COMMUNICATION.
You should look at creating time to talk to one another as an investment in your
marriage. You should practice open and honest communication. Set aside time for deeper
conversations about your feelings, dreams, and challenges.

SUPPORTING YOUR SPOUSE’S MINISTRY INTERESTS.
Encourage each other’s individual pursuits and passions. You may be a teacher in ministry
while your spouse is passionate about intercession, encouraging her in the intercessory
ministry without feeling threatened is an investment that will yield future results. This
shows you value each other as individuals as well as partners. You will realize later
that when you encourage the ministry interest of your spouse, it enlarges yours.
My wife’s passion is in old people which we do together by establishing a non
governmental organization during our 30th wedding anniversary. To the glory of God as I
join her in the the senior citizens’ activities as well as she joins me in my own
ministry interests, it has helped us tremendously in enlarging my own ministry while
strengthening her own.

TEAMWORK.
Working together on common goals, whether they’re personal, financial, family or ministry
oriented may later prove to yield fruitful results in your relationship. This is an
investment that strengthens your bond as a couple.

EMPATHY.
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It
involves recognizing their emotions, experiencing them from their perspective, and
responding with compassion. Empathy can enhance your relationship and promote emotional
connections between you and your spouse, as it allows you to support and relate with each
other more deeply.

ACTS OF KINDNESS.
Deliberate acts of kindness is an investment that you must not ignore in your marital
relationship. Small, thoughtful gestures can go a long way. Send text messages, surprise
each other with favorite treats, or help out with chores.

SEEKING RELATIONSHIP IMPROVEMENTS.
Never be too sure that you know enough about marital relationships. Being aware of the
areas in which there is need for improvement in your relationship, and working
consciously towards it can add significantly to the pleasure that individual members
derive from marriage. You may need to attend couples programs, counseling or relationship
workshops to gain new tools for communication and conflict resolution.

PHYSICAL AFFECTION.
If you want a better marriage, you must never underestimate the power of physical touch
ie. holding hands, hugs, and intimacy. Such activities are worthy investments because
they can reinforce your emotional connection.

GRATITUDE PRACTICE.
Regular expression of appreciation for one another is an investment into your marriage.
Acknowledging the little things can help foster a positive atmosphere. For instance, it
is assumed that it is the responsibility of the wife to prepare food, but appreciating
your wife even for little things like that does a lot in making your wife to know that
she is valued. Though the husband too takes it as his responsibility to provide funds,
your appreciation and prayer for him after paying children school fees goes a long way to
lift up his spirit.

FAMILY TRADITIONS
Establishing traditions, like nightly checks, remembering birthdays or a special way to
celebrate milestones, can create lasting traditions that enhance your bond.

WHAT IT TAKES TO INVEST IN YOUR MARRIAGE.
Just as it is not easy to invest financially, it also requires a lot to invest into your
marriage. Some of what it takes to invest in marriage are discussed below:

SELFLESSNESS.
It often takes selflessness to be able to invest in your relationship, as it requires you
to think less of yourself and more about your spouse. When you are doing so, and your
spouse is doing same, investment becomes mutual in your relationship.

EXPECTATION OF DIVIDENDS.
When you see others reaping the fruits that accrue from investing in their own marriage,
the expectation of such dividends might encourage you to invest into your marriage
whatever it takes.

THE ABILITY TO COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.
Seeing the positive side of things in your marriage can make you to invest more into it.
Despite all complaints that you may have about your spouse and some circumstances in your
home, if you are able to realize that you still have reason to appreciate God, it will
encourage you to do more for the relationship to get stronger.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
The way 1 Corinthians 13 defines love is descriptive of selfless disposition in love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not
puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no
evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are
tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
If you exhibit such love for your spouse, it is an undeniable investment that can only
make your marriage to experience fulfillment in the future.

ABILITY TO FORGIVE.
In the life of your relationship, there must be offenses. Your ability to forgive such
offenses will go a long way to determine how much investment you will be ready to put
into the marriage.

ABILITY TO FORGET ALTERNATIVES.
When you see an alternative to your spouse in anyone, your readiness to invest in your
relationship reduces drastically. Alternatives may come in members of the opposite sex
from whom you derive part of the pleasure that you are supposed to derive from your
spouse. Once that alternative is there, it makes your spouse less appreciated. It is
difficult to invest into a venture that is not valued by you.

THE DESIRE TO DO GOD’S WILL.
The desire of God about marriage is summarized in the words of Jesus in the following
scripture:
Matthew 19:4-6
And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the
beginning made them male and female,’ and said, For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So
then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let
not man separate.”
The plan of God according to the scripture above is that we should be together, male and
female as one flesh, and that once we are together, nothing should separate us. Someone
that wants to do the will of God will continue keeping on while others would have long
separated.
When there are challenges in the home of he who wants to do the will of God, he continues
to invest with the hope that his investments will yield dividends that will keep the home
together.

CONCLUSION.
The result of investments in your relationship is trust from your spouse. Every
investment is like savings into your trust account. The more you save into your trust
account, the more secured your marriage is. It is trust that will make your spouse to be
an unfailing companion to you in ministry. It is trust that will make your spouse to
feel indebted to you during old age. It is trust that you have built over the years
through your investments into the marriage that will facilitate the delivery of all the
dividends of your investments in this project of marriage.
May we receive the grace to deny self and invest heavily into our marriage, so that we
may enjoy the dividends later in life in Jesus name.