Last Two Secret Ingredients for Lasting Love
By Harold and Bette Gillogly
Here we go, the final two ingredients to make your love last forever. Do you remember the first six? They are posted on our website https://marriages.net/. Simply click on “Articles” and select from “Recent Posts” in the right hand border. But you are breathlessly waiting to hear the last 2, so here they are:
- The Mutual Dependency Choice: We’re talking about you and your spouse becoming interdependent – depending on one another built on mutual respect. This means that you must view your marriage not as a contest, but as a cooperation. Where you are not in competition with each other. Where you are not struggling for control of the relationship. You will find this to be the path of harmony.
The other path – maybe the one you are now on – is the path of constant drama and unhappiness. It’s when you are in continual power struggles. You each want control, and you fear being controlled. You’re like two puppies fighting over the same rag. They sink their teeth into opposite ends of the rag and growl and roll around and growl some more. They each may think they want that rag, but they usually end up so tired, they fall asleep with the rag lying limply between them, having both lost. And you both will lose too. Because the more you struggle for control, the less control you will have!
We urge you to put aside your desire to win and remember that God put you and your spouse together to form a team. And teams are interdependent on each other! Neither one of you will ever win unless your team wins!
Choose to be Mutually Dependent!
- Sexual Intimacy God’s Way Choice: God is the Creator of sex. He created it as a gift for every married couple to enjoy. He declares the marriage bed to be pure and undefiled (Hebrews 13:4). God is not speaking in this Scripture of the place you sleep. Marriage bed in this verse means “sexual intimacy.” So in His sight, sexual intimacy between married partners is pure, not dirty. He even dedicates a whole book in His Scriptures to the subject of married love – The Song of Songs. Wow, what a book!
For some of you, this might be a difficult ingredient because of the wrong messages you’ve received about sex throughout your life. Perhaps well-meaning people impressed upon you that sex is dirty. They were wrong. They passed on to you the lie they themselves believed. Feel sorry for them, but don’t believe them. And some of you were victims of sexual abuse and have a real struggle believing the truth about sex. But we encourage you to find out what God says about sex. And The Song of Songs in a modern translation is a good place to start. Makes sense that since He is the Creator of sex, He should have the final word on it, huh?
If your sex life needs help, don’t just let it be. Do something about it! If you email us, we will be so happy to steer you into the steps you need to take to start enjoying God’s gift of sex as He intended you to do. Email us at gtocentral@ marriages.net.
Choose Sexual Intimacy God’s Way!
There you have it! The eight ingredients that will make your love last forever. And we promise if you will practice these ingredients – God’s recipe – your married life is going to become gloriously tasty! It’s not going to happen overnight. But if you don’t …get tired of going what is good. At just the right time [you] will reap a harvest of blessing if [you] don’t give up (Galatians 6:9).
We hope you have followed our blog this month and have discovered what these 8 ingredients are and how to put them into practice. We also encourage you to read our two Seeds for Growth articles, Questions about S-E-X, (https://marriages.net/questions-about-s-e-x/) and More Questions about S-E-X, (https://marriages.net/more-questions-about-sex/). Also watch our webinar Seven Secrets of Great Lovers, (https://marriages.net/seven-secrets-of-great-lovers/) for more help in making your love last forever.