(continued from https://lighthousechurchinc.org/2020/04/25/idolatry-in-a-marriage-part-1)

Anything you put before God is idolatry. When you focus on one thing that overrides anything else that He is telling you to do or you agreed to do and all else suffers from your lack of attention in those areas, you have entered into idolatry.

The enemy knows where our weak points are. The enemy knew he could not blatantly attack my love for God without me fighting back or noticing right away. But the enemy knew of my weakness of acceptance and desire to not be rejected, especially by my own husband. And eventually my love and relationship with God started becoming drained and I just couldn’t understand why.

It would not matter what my husband would do as right, it would somehow get twisted. The enemy knew of my fears that I had not trusted God in no matter what logic the enemy threw my way. The enemy will throw you some good excuses to keep doing what you are doing and will even disguise it as you are doing it for God or to even help a soul. The truth is if you are not doing it God’s way, you are not doing it correctly. You can and will cause much damage and in a valley trying to figure out how did you get there.

Yes, my husband’s opinion matters to me. Yes, I love to be accepted by him and it is good to keep peace in the home. Yes, it doesn’t feel good when you know you are going to do something that is going to upset them and possibly you could suffer a consequence for it. The most important above all of this, is that doing what God wants, says, and expects needs to be top priority. When you do this and turn your spouse into God’s hands, He can take care of the rest. He can handle your spouse. He knows them better than you do. You may even find out, it wasn’t your spouse who had the issues or need to change. It very well could have been you this whole time.

How your husband, wife, children, pastor, friends are not always going to be the way God is. They are human and will have their good and bad days. If you place your value upon man or woman, they will let you down at times. This doesn’t mean don’t trust them or listen to what they have to say and follow their advice, especially to those who have authority over you. It means when something doesn’t feel right or you can see it goes against God’s will or God’s word, you have to stick with what God says.

God never will leave you. When you think God has left you, the truth is somewhere you have left Him. It is you that has to go reach out and make it right again with God.

God is a jealous God and will not put up with other things taking His place. This is not for Himself but the fact that He knows what will happen to you when you put something else in His place and it is not ever good. God only wants the best for His children.

There are going to be days that your spouse is not going to accept you the way you want. There are days your spouse is not going to meet your needs as you would like. They are going to make decisions you may not agree with and may have to go through life changes and consequences with because of them. If you keep God in first place, God will take you through them and will fill in the gaps, give you the strength, and provide for you all that you have need of. God will bring you out stronger than you started out.

Take some time and really examine yourself and take into consideration all those opinions and acceptance that you value. Do you value them more than God? Do you put too much responsibility on them to be something that they cannot be for you? What position have you placed people in your life and is it the way God has placed them?

The truth is, it is all about balance. When you got your eyes focus on God and listen for Him, things will balance out and you can see impossible things take place. If your relationship is right with God, and you have Him in the right position in your mind, your heart, in your life, you will learn how to place others in your life in the correct way. Ask God to place your spouse in their rightful place in your heart and let Him guide you. Keep idolatry out of your life and things in balance, and keep God first always.