One of the best things about being married to a godly spouse is that things that you can learn from them. Of course, you can learn things from anybody, but you don’t have a front-row seat to any other person’s life, habits, quirks and tendencies like you do the person that you are married to. Hopefully, their life models Christ’s love and grace in ways that still need to be developed in yours, just like you hopefully do the same for them.
I’m blessed to have a husband that I learn from regularly (which may indicate that I have a lot to learn, but that’s a post for another day.) One of the most frequent lessons he teaches me is what it means to love our family in Christ. I don’t know of anyone who will go out of their way to help someone in need like my husband will, and he does it not out of “obligation” or a conviction of obedience, but out of true concern and affection for the other person, even for a brother in Christ that he may not know very well.
Another thing that my husband has taught me is the importance of the words that we say. In reflecting on Colossians 4:6 which commands a believer’s speech to be “seasoned with salt,” my husband had this insight:
We have been called to honor others through our words. Our words are to be like salt which both intensifies the taste in food (we are to make Christ someone they desire and seek on a daily basis) and keeps it from spoiling (reminding them that Christ prevents us from being corrupted). Similar to Eph 4:29; we should speak what is helpful and uplifting to others as it may benefit them. I’m praying God be glorified in our conversations today.
Did you catch that?
Our speech is supposed to attract others – our words are to be so representative of Christ that they can see His majesty, His love, His graciousness, and His forgiveness in them.
Our speech is also supposed to preserve others – we should be encouraging them, reminding them to “fight the good fight” because it is Christ who wages the battle on our behalf.
(I told you it is easy to learn a lot from him, didn’t I?)
And while it is good to practice this attracting and preserving speech to anyone that we come into contact with, the most important place for it is in our marriages. In the space where we know someone most intimately, and we have direct insight into the struggles they face and the victories that they are seeking to secure, our words have the potential for the greatest impact. Are we using them to attract our spouse to Christ, to remind them that it is He who is at work in them? As we speak to them are we doing so in such a way that acknowledges that they are Christ’s child, or have we allowed familiarity to extinguish the purposefulness of our speech? Are our words drawing our loved one to Christ or pushing them away?
As my wise husband stated, may “God be gloried in our conversations today.”