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Have Whole Hearted Agreement
Brad Thompson
May 30, 2010
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Have Whole Hearted Agreement
“How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understanding.” – Proverbs 3:13
We enjoy discovering as much as we can about the things we truly care about. If it’s our favorite football team, we’ll read any article we can find that gives a little more insight. If it’s cooking, we will watch those cooking shows that help us add one more skill to our repertoire.
When it comes to your marriage, how much do you know about your spouse? When a man is trying to win the heart of a woman, he studies her. He learns likes, dislikes, habits and hobbies. But after he wins her heart and marries her, he often stops learning about her. The mystery of knowing her seems less intriguing, and he may find his interests drifting to other areas. That’s probably why I hear her say in counseling, “I want him to ‘date’ or ‘court’ me again.”
This is also true for many wives, who start off admiring and respecting this guy they’re dating. But then she marries him and reality begins to reveal that her “prince in shining armor” is flawed and imperfect.
What would happen if we continued to pursue them, even after the honeymoon ended? Intimacy doesn’t start to fade because of time. It starts to fade because we stop working to get to know our spouse. There are reasons for the things that she does – even the things that annoy you. What if you took the time to know and understand the “back stories” of your spouse’s character? Every element of who he is, how he thinks, and what he’s like is rooted in a set of guiding principles, that have been shaped and molded by life experiences that probably took place long before you came into the picture. What may seem weird or unreasonable to you makes perfect sense to her based on her life experiences.
What if you took the time to learn about those life-shaping events? If we want to unlock our spouse’s heart again, we will probably need to make a commitment to knowing them again. How do we do that? By asking questions, then listening to and studying their answers. That is the heart of communication - the subject we will tackle this morning.