In my last post, I mentioned three things Steve and I have done intentionally that have had a positive impact on our twenty-nine-year marriage. The first one is that we learned how to approach life as givers by tithing. The second one has to do with prayer.
Do you know the percentage of marriages that end in divorce in the U.S.? 50% of all marriages don’t make it. How many Christian marriages end in divorce? 50%. Evidently, saying you’re a Christian doesn’t improve the odds.
However, in marriages where two people who call themselves Christian pray daily together, something like one in a thousand ends in divorce. It really is true that the family that prays together, stays together.
About the time we got serious about our walk with Christ, Steve and I started praying together. The first few times we did it, it felt awkward. To me, prayer is the most intimate thing you can do with your spouse. Getting that personal and that real with each other takes some practice. But over time, we got used to it and now, it is such a gift in our life together.
Here’s what we do. When we get in bed at night, the first thing we do is a little mental check to see if there’s anything we needed to tell each other that we haven’t had the chance to say. Then eventually, one of us will say, “Who’s turn is it?” And whoever’s turn it is will pray. The next night, it is the other person’s turn.
Praying together does two things in a marriage. First, because it is such a real and intimate thing, it is a place where you really get to hear the other person’s heart. People tend to be more honest, more transparent when they pray. Second, because it is a prayer, God hears it. Jesus says that wherever two or three are gathered together, he is right there with them. So if you want to make that triangle thing happen in your marriage, prayer will do it for you. Prayer is like a zipline that takes you immediately into God’s presence.
So … We tithe. We pray together. And the third thing we’ve done intentionally to build our marriage is that we observe a Sabbath.
In other words, we pay. We pray. And we play.
Sabbath. Every major figure in the Bible talked about this habit. Jesus himself was faithful to practice it. The Bible in both testaments claims it as the key to healthy living — spiritually, mentally and physically. And yet, we rarely discuss it and seldom take it seriously. It runs consistently through the Bible, but it’s the one thing I’ve consistently and dangerously neglected in my own life.
When we first came to Augusta to plant a church, I was really wrapped up in the work. I got so wrapped up in it, in fact, that I began to neglect not only my family but my own spiritual life. And I was a pastor! Somewhere along the way, we decided that the only way for us to restore some kind of rhythm to our lives was to begin practicing a day of rest every week — one day when we could cease work and worry and just be with each other. It is a day we rest, and play and nap and try to just enjoy life.
Sabbath gives a holy rhythm to the practice of our faith, and it has been the one thing in our home that has the power to calm the storms.
Because I’m a pastor and work on Sunday, our Sabbath is 6:00p Friday to 6:00p Saturday. At least in theory, it is. We don’t make it there every week. I am in a season now when Sabbath rest has been scarce, and I am recalibrating to restore it to my life. Sabbath has to be the goal, because this is one way we get our lives back in line with God’s design.
Here’s what we’ve learned after twenty-nine years of giving this our best shot. You will never make enough money to make yourself happy, and you will never have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. Tithing, prayer and Sabbath are ways of trusting God and for us, they have been means of grace.
