Hardness of heart is…
-lacking genuine sorrow over sin.
-continuing to go back again and again into temptation, lies and deceit.
-choosing to think of yourself as most important.
-choosing what’s best for you and not the other.
-the small lies and huge lies that you convince yourself are not a big deal.
-being unteachable.
-tearing down with words.
-comparing and contrasting your wrongs against the other and making the judgement that “theirs is worse.”
-responding with defensiveness.
-the need to always be in control.
-waiting for the other to say sorry first.
-demanding the other change first.
-thinking more of what you deserve instead of what you can give.
-focusing more on being right than on becoming righteous.
-what you can get out of someone instead of how you can invest in them.
-the refusal to forgive.
-the refusal to humble yourself to ask for forgiveness.
-saying you forgive, but never letting go.
-asking for forgiveness and then going back to do the same thing again.
-magnifying the weaknesses and minimizing the strengths of the other, while magnifying the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of yourself.
-justifying wrongful actions because they “started it first.”
-spending more time trying to find an official clinical diagnosis to explain away their issues than looking in the mirror to address your own.
-preserving your own well-being at the expense of the other.
-reading this list and thinking someone else should be reading this…
In order for marriages to thrive BOTH people need to guard with all diligence against hardness of heart. It has no place in marriage, yet in big ways and in small ways we let it creep in. This hardness often begins so subtly, with the smallest acts of selfishness…but left unchecked can grow to become a raging fire of wrath, anger, hatred and bitterness.
We’ve all heard that marriage is work. And now that Matt and I have been married for over 15 years I can say I absolutely agree. But that work is far different than I ever imagined and far more challenging than I thought it was during our first few newlywed, starry-eyed years.
When I write that marriage takes work I’m not talking about the occasional act of service of helping clean the house, going to get the car washed, figuring out who takes the trash out or who cleans the toilets. I’m not talking about the effort or time it takes to figure out how to get consistent date nights, the challenges of figuring out how to raise kids together, working together to decide on what kind of house to buy, figuring out work schedules, when/where to vacation or even how often to visit the in-laws…
I’m talking about grueling, gut wrenching, goes-against-everything-you-feel work.
I’m talking about choosing to daily lay down your life for another, looking for ways to love, to pursue, and being relentless to leave no room for distance. This kind of work is staying in conversations that are extremely difficult, learning to have the self-control to know when to pause those conversations, and then exercising the diligence to pick it back up again. I’m talking about constantly thinking past what their mouth is saying to seek out what it is their heart is saying. I’m talking about loving when the other is unlovable, and respecting when the other is not respectable. This kind of work is being exhausted from the days events yet still making time to be present, to connect, to see, to listen, and to be a friend. It’s work to truly forgive and it’s beyond challenging to continue to walk in that forgiveness again and again refusing to hold onto past wrongs or hang them over their head.
It’s work to see your spouse as a gift and to be diligent to treat them like one…even when, or should I say, especially when, they don’t deserve it.
It’s work to defer your own preferences, your own agenda and your own feelings in order to pursue unity.
God wants us to cultivate what we have been given. But in marriage the reality of what we have been given is often far more challenging to cultivate than we ever would have anticipated.
There is pain between expectation and reality.
This kind of work in marriage IS painful…yet it produces a bond that compares with no other. It brings about character, joy, honor, patience, perseverance, and maturity. Pressing on through the hardship of marriage not only binds two people together in an indescribably beautiful scar-filled unity, but ultimately sanctifies us and causes our lives to look more and more like Jesus.
Jesus, while we were yet his enemies, laid down his life for our sake. We were ransomed from our futility by his own blood and have been born again into a new hope, a living hope, to be built up as living stones in honor of the one true God. We are a people chosen for God’s possession, for obedience, and for His glory.
Through marriage we learn to love like Jesus does.
I urge you, dear friend, if you find yourself reading this and you are not at peace with your spouse…drop whatever you are doing and begin with prayer. What is it you need to hear? Where is it you need to grow? What is it you need to change? Ask the Lord to change your heart first.
