In John 13, Jesus is eating a meal with the disciples, his closest companions in the last hours before being crucified. The disciples were having a conversation about which one of them was the greatest, after Jesus gave them the example of washing their feet. In that culture washing someone’s feet was a demeaning task, but the example that Jesus showed is that the greatest was the servant. Jesus does not condemn them for wanting to be great, he just flips it upside down.  To be great is to be the servant.  He introduces the idea that servant leadership is how you change the world.  Followers of Jesus should have the heart of a servant. The disciples must have been stunned by both His example and His message.

As Christ followers, when we are around friends, among strangers, and especially within our marriages, we are to be servants. We are to put others’ needs ahead of our own.

A husband and wife who make the priority to selflessly serve one another have discovered the secret of a great marriage.

Why is serving each other so important in marriage? The heart of a servant will develop three qualities:

Friendship is the well of marriage.  You drink from it when times are hard and celebrate from it when times are great.   If you have a deep emotional connection that is created through friendship you can make it through anything.  Always keep friendship alive with shared experiences together.

“It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up — painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, and fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction.” C.S. Lewis

Marriage without friendship won’t work in our hectic culture.  Friendship has to be nourished and nurtured regularly or it faces the danger of becoming two opposite lives that never connect. Couples that don’t develop and nurture their friendship often drift apart.

A weakened friendship can create an opening for marital infidelity.  If a couple drifts apart and fails to nurture the friendship it can lead a spouse to seek intimacy in other places. You have to share your hopes, dreams, successes and struggles with your spouse, if you don’t you are vulnerable to sharing them with someone else of the opposite sex.  When couples let their friendship take a back seat, friendships outside the marriage can result in emotional, and even physical, adultery. Sometimes these kinds of friendships outside the marriage are obviously easier. The problem is we are comparing a relationship outside the marriage that has the luxury of no responsibility and is hidden in the dark to all the struggles of cleaning toilets, paying bills and raising kids together, that happens in a real marriage.  It is easy to see that deep emotional intimacy between a spouse and another of the opposite sex wrong, however, if you’re investing emotional capital in a same-sex relationship at the peril of the marriage, then that is also dangerous.

In marriage the question is am I investing more time and emotional energy into my spouse than I am in a friend or child? Or, where is it that I’m investing most of my times and emotional energy?

A struggling friendship in marriage can be restored with intentional time together, sacrifice, perseverance, and especially prayer. A good first step is to find activities that you like to do together – and then make the time do it. Learn to make the priority of regular shared experiences that nurture friendship.

We are surprised when relationships become difficult.  It is confusing for some couples how something that used to feel so natural and easy starts to struggle.  Don’t be surprised when you have to work at the relationship to keep it vibrant.  The “work” of marriage is compromise and connection.

• Compromise – You both have an opinion and a preference. You don’t want to marry someone just like you, because your differences create attraction.  Every marriage will need to learn how to compromise. You will not always get your way.
• Connection – The area that surprises people the most is staying connected and close.  The busyness of life pulls us apart making connection a constant struggle. Lean to be intentional with time together.  Intimacy is shared experiences together, so create experiences that include laughter, play and touch.

A great marriage is when two people work together and create compromise and connection.

If you want something to last a lifetime, you treat it differently.  You will protect it from the elements.  You will give it the care it needs.  If something breaks you will repair it – you will not avoid it, or scream at it.  It will become more special over time because of all the effort you have put into it.  It will become more beautiful as it ages.  Marriage should be no different, make it last a lifetime.  Have the marriage that others admire in a way that makes them ask questions about God.

We are always building something.  The problem is most of the time we are building careers and building our bank account but we seem to never get around to building our marriage, until we get in a crisis.

Sometimes the most dangerous word in any relationship, especially marriage is…. Tomorrow

We all begin to believe, “After all… tomorrow is another day” we will deal with this tomorrow. Tomorrow you will go on a date night. Tomorrow you will find a babysitter and spend quality time together. Tomorrow you will be home from work on time. Tomorrow you will sit down for dinner together. Tomorrow you will work on your budget. Tomorrow you’ll take time for sexual intimacy. Tomorrow you’ll resolve that conflict.

Tomorrow you promise yourself will be different, yet tomorrow is too often a repetition of today. Tomorrow always promises more than it delivers and delays the marriage you truly desire.

Most marriages are nearly destroyed by, “tomorrow.” Tomorrow we’ll go to counseling. Tomorrow we’ll make time for each other. Tomorrow we’ll make changes. Tomorrow we’ll be intentional…until there was almost no tomorrow.

We can’t get better at anything today by waiting until tomorrow. Pushing things to tomorrow creates the “under promise and over deliver” sham.  It doesn’t work.

Today is the day to:

• Go for a walk
• Send that text over lunch saying you miss her / him
• Set media aside for an hour and talk
• Go see a movie or date night
• Have dinner around the table and not on the couch

Do something different, so you can have something different.

Couples usually have slightly different variations of the same fight over and over again. They unconsciously repeat old patterns as a way to cling to the familiar while at the same time hoping that it will turn out differently this time. It may have to do with an attempt to heal old wounds, often from their arguments around these topics:

• families that you grew up in
• struggles with the kids
• how money is handled
• the quantity or quality of sex
• whether or not you are helping each other around the house

Once you start seeing and understanding the pattern, an opportunity for real healing and growth can occur in your relationship. I also often tell couples that creating a strong connection to your partner doesn’t happen in a dramatic crescendo like in the movies. Healthy couples have daily acts and small moments of letting one another into their internal worlds.