Everyday comes challenges and changes. In marriages, things seem to be very celebratory in the beginning. Much grace is given to the spouse because the “blindness” to their flaws is still there. In a way it is actually very close to the scripture “Love covers a multitude of sin.” It is not like the flaw suddenly came. It has been there but now you are more aware of it. The issue is too many people let those flaws begin to drain their marriage of the grace and the focus goes off of their desire to do for the spouse and instead becomes self focused on your needs. This can bring an atmosphere of “living partners” instead of husband and wife. Was this the way God intended it to be?

I, myself have been asking this questions and seeking God face about it. One thing I have learned it the only one that I can change is me. I cannot change anyone response to my change. I cannot control someone else to change. According to the Word of God that is not our job. Our job is to allow God’s Word to mold and bring our character to the place as He has designed it to be.

The Word of God is designed to help us with each and every one of those challenges and changes. But it is up to us to seek God’s face and to keep our focus where it should be.

When you look at 1 Corinthians 13, Love is the action of all things mentioned. It is what defines love. Not feelings, not emotions, but the choice to take action. It is one of the hardest scriptures to live out if you try to strive to do it on your own. However, if you draw upon God, every day it gets easier to allow God to mold it into your character and nature so that you can walk it out. You can only do that as you crucify the flesh.

Being the change goes deeper than just deciding to make some good choices. You have to stay steadfast in walking it out even through the hardest times that come your way. One of the hardest things is when your spouse turns from God or does not follow God. Wives, God speaks about this in His Word and expects us to win them over with love. You cannot do that with accusations and demands of their changing. You cannot walk this out by giving into any type of fear. You can only be the change and example that they need and trusting God no matter what.

1 Peter 3:1-6 (ERV)

3 In the same way, you wives should be willing to serve your husbands. Then, even those who have refused to accept God’s teaching will be persuaded to believe because of the way you live. You will not need to say anything. ² Your husbands will see the pure lives that you live with respect for God. ³ It is not fancy hair, gold jewelry, or fine clothes that should make you beautiful. ⁴ No, your beauty should come from inside you—the beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. That beauty will never disappear. It is worth very much to God.

⁵ It was the same with the holy women who lived long ago and followed God. They made themselves beautiful in that same way. They were willing to serve their husbands. ⁶ I am talking about women like Sarah. She obeyed Abraham, her husband, and called him her master. And you women are true children of Sarah if you always do what is right and are not afraid.

The world has molded the mindsets of the expectation of receiving. The demand for self desire and self gratification has become brutal and without any regard towards the other person’s needs or wants. This has caused a great division in the homes and the only way of changing it is to be that change.

Husbands tend to have the complaints of lacking things in the home and seeing the flaws of the wife that has been built upon different clichés that the world has brought in. However, God has given the answer on how to deal with the wife, even the one who seems ultimately unbearable.

Husbands, you have to look at yourself and ask yourself are you doing what the Word of God has instructed you to do. Get into your Word and apply. You may be surprised in how it all works out. But it means dying to yourself and putting the needs of your wife first, just as Jesus Christ has done for the Body.

1 Peter 3:7 (NIV)

⁷ Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.

Ephesians 5:25-33 (ERV)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives the same as Christ loved the church and gave his life for it. ²⁶ He died to make the church holy. He used the telling of the Good News to make the church clean by washing it with water. ²⁷ Christ died so that he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty. He died so that the church could be holy and without fault, with no evil or sin or any other thing wrong in it.

²⁸ And husbands should love their wives like that. They should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself, ²⁹ because no one ever hates his own body, but feeds and takes care of it. And that is what Christ does for the church ³⁰ because we are parts of his body. ³¹ The Scriptures say, “That is why a man will leave his father and mother and join his wife, and the two people will become one.” ³² That secret truth is very important—I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ But each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself. And a wife must respect her husband.

Finger-pointing, blaming, and accusations only gets you more frustrated and bigger problems and not any solutions that bring restoration. If you want your life to change, be the change. Let your spouse see what you would like to see them doing and watch the changes that take place. You may be surprised on what they pick up from your change in lifestyle.

This change can only take place, last, and make a difference if you first love God and have work on getting close with Him. Jesus was the walking example here on this earth and He always made sure to stay connected to God and get and follow the instructions given to Him and we have to be the same way. And as we immolate that love, change will take place and lives will be saved. You have to make the decision to be that change, but the best part is you do not have to do it alone.