Recently at "An Evening Together: When Marriage Gets Real" we had the opportunity to review some of the basic understanding of marriage from God's purpose and design.  We also looked at communications in marriage and working through conflict to the point of loving and cherishing our spouse - it was a great time together! 

Here are some of the questions we used for discussion at the tables as well as the prayer shared together at the end of the evening.  

We trust this will continue to stir up conversation in the months and years ahead as a helpful equipping tool in your relationship. 

God’s Purpose in Marriage:

1. How does understanding God’s purpose in marriage change your perspective on your marriage currently?
2. Where do you currently find “hope” for your marriage?
3. What would be the effect on your marriage of a deepening relationship with God?

Communication in Marriage:

1. What types of words most often used in your marriage?
2. What is the example this sets for those who observe your relationship?
3. What Biblical language would your marriage most benefit from?

Conflict Resolution that leads to Loving and Cherishing:

1. Would unforgiveness be a mark of your relationship over the years?
2. How can your relationship with God be reflected better in your marriage relationship?
3. How would you best understand Love?  How do you express it most often to your spouse?
4. How would you best understand cherishing someone?  How do you express it most often with your spouse?
5. What prayer do you have for your marriage moving forward?

A Prayer for our Marriages:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Col. 3:12-14 (NIV)

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 1 Thess. 5:11 (ESV)

Dear heavenly Father, failure to pray for and nourish our marriages is like failing to drink water, get sleep, or breath air. The outcome is predictable and not pretty. There’s no other relationship on earth with greater power to expose our brokenness and reveal your grace, tap into our longings and frustrate us beyond measure, all at the same time. And there’s no other relationship, like marriage, that Satan is more determined to crash and burn.

So we come to you today, interceding for marriages—friend’s and ours.

You have made us for yourself, Father; and our deepest, most powerful, and most insatiable longings for relationship can only be met in you—not in any human being. So our prayer is simple and essential. Once again, Father, inundate our hearts and marriages with the only love that is better than life, the only love that will never let go of us, the only love that is enough—your lavish and liberating love for us in Jesus.

Precisely because we are “chosen, holy, and dearly loved” by you, fill our hearts and marriages with your “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Free us to forbear with each other, and forgive each other, as you so generously relate to us in Jesus. Until the day you take one of us home, help us to encourage one another and build each other up. Help us to outdo one another in kindness. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus merciful and mighty name.