"You Both Made it to 2020! Now What?"

"What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the New Year." –Vern McLellan

Happy New Year!

Whenever we cross over into a new year, and in our case today – to a new decade, there is always an opportunity to reflect over the past year and to begin setting goals and making resolutions for the new year.

At the risk of sounding "preachy," we can't overlook the symbolism of closing the door on an entire decade. Yes, the number 20 is important because it gives direction. This number, actually the culmination of two decades, encourages those of us who have been praying, declaring, waiting, anticipating, and smearing that expensive anointing oil from the heart of Israel on everything that moves that "The Wait Is Over!"

What have you been waiting for in your marriage? Every year, we make these solemn declarations and these often unattainable, but profound resolutions concerning our marriages and our lives. Three months later, we're sitting across from our spouses at the breakfast table and trying our very best to talk ourselves down from leaping across the table and shoving those softly scrambled eggs with cheese down their throats. You know I'm telling the truth! Okay . . . maybe pancakes and not the scrambled eggs then.

If you want him to be more affectionate and loving toward you, are you willing to be more respectful of and more patient with him? If you want her to clean the house more thoroughly and to present you with a home-cooked meal at least twice a week (from your home, and cooked from her hands), are you willing to see to it that she never, ever has to drag another trash can to the curb as long as you are healthy and the two of you live in the same household

?

Good marriages don't happen by osmosis. We don't just sit there and declare a thing and then, by faith, wait for it to happen. Faith requires works. Don't you dare be deceived and misled by thinking you need not work at your marriage because you both are saved, sanctified, and filled with the precious Holy Ghost. Baybeeee . . . that's the kind of marriage the enemy targets.

I want to encourage you in my first blog post of 2020, to work on your marriage. Don't be so quick to throw in the towel. Try not to see working on your marriage as a chore or a way to keep score of how good and sacrificial you are. Work at it because you absolutely love your partner, because you value the institution of marriage, because you respect what God has put together, and because you honor the God Who put it together!

Be a real "Marriage Lover."