Making Your Husband a Priority

Yesterday I read a very worthwhile message from Nancy Leigh DeMoss entitled "Make Your Husband a Priority." It served as an excellent reminder of some things, and also challenged me to be more focused on and intentional about my priorities and serving my husband. She asks these questions:

• Is your relationship with your husband the highest, most important priority and relationship in your life, next to your relationship with the Lord? How do you do on the priority thing?
• Does your husband know that you are committed to be faithful to him no matter what—that you will never divorce him? That’s part of a commitment to love.
• Do you put your husband’s needs and desires ahead of your own?
• Are you willing to adjust your schedule to meet his needs and desires, or do you expect him to drop his things and adjust his schedule? Now, I’m not saying he should never do that, and if he loves you, he will. But your expectation cannot be for him to do that. There needs to be the willingness for you to work around his schedule.
• Do you have common interests and friends, or are they all independent—you have your friends, and he has his friends; you have your hobbies and interests, and he has his? If that’s the case, then a little warning light should go off in your head. That doesn’t mean you should never have different interests or friends. But you want to make sure that you have interests and friends that you share in common—something, by the way, that I think my parents did incredibly well. They shared together their interests and their friends.
• Do you look for meaningful ways to bless and to please your husband?
• What have you done in the last week to cultivate love and friendship in your marriage, and what can you do today?

Putting my husband's needs and desires ahead of my own is definitely where I need to grow the most. Far too often, I confess, I expect my needs and desired to be considered and taken care of, or assume I need to look out for and protect my interests. Josh puts my needs and desires ahead of his own so well and so consistently, which makes it all the more convicting and compelling for me to work on this.

Now I should consider the last challenge: How can I cultivate love and friendship in my marriage today and this week? And for my married readers, how about you? How can you cultivate love and friendship in your marriage right now?