Photo Credit: Kosta Dupcinov, Creative Commons
Pray together. Whether you are in a new relationship, engaged, or married—pray together. Prayer is essential for any relationship. When God relays the prominently quoted piece of marriage scripture in Genesis, “and the two shall become one flesh,” he is talking about a uniting of spirits.
Signing a marriage certificate and your wedding night will help that process, but if that’s all a marriage is or all a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship has become, then we’re missing out on a key component. Divorce rates continue to rise and are currently hovering around 46% for couples in the United States. An interesting statistic that blows this away is that only 1% of those who are married and regularly pray together get divorced.
Why do you think that is? I believe that this effort and focus of uniting in spirit realigns our selfish desires, helps us submit to one another, and promotes a refreshing love that is not attainable any other way. But it doesn’t stop there. When in a relationship you can do even more than praying together. You could…
- Study the Bible
- Mentor younger couples or be mentored
- Attend church together
- Go to a Bible conference
- Worship at a Christian concert
- Text each other Bible verses to reflect on during the day
- Ask big spiritual questions and discuss them, esp: “Why do we need God?”
- Meet with other couples and share your successes and struggles
Discovering why spirituality matters in a relationship can be hard. Often times we let our perspective slip away when we are looking for someone to date; physical attraction begins to trump whether they are a Christian or not. It’s the truth of the dating scene today—faith in Jesus doesn’t matter as much as good looks, accomplishments, and future potential do.
Well-raised, committed Christian guys and girls give in to temptations of the world and accept “the way relationships are today” because there seems like there is no other way to do it, no one else “better” out there. But God wants the best for us.
He created the very first relationship to be spiritually based. Man and woman were created from each other and revolved around a perfect unity in a perfect place. Today we must do our best to rebuild this spiritual relationship. We must establish physical boundaries, handle our emotions, and be able to unite together in spirit, putting God first and our selfish desires second.
Culture tells us to sleep around, have fun, and be free. God requires us to be holy, pure, and honor his name. We live under the false presumption that a man or woman will be able to meet our needs and fulfill our every desire, but believing this is our biggest flaw.
Another human, whether a friend, family member, or spouse, will never be able to fulfill us.
Humans are faltering, they fail, they are not perfect, they will get it wrong. Putting all our trust in them is bogus. Instead, we must claim God as our utmost and highest, as our fulfiller and answer to our failures. Having him at the pinnacle of a relationship will create a foundation that will never falter. But the only way we can do this is by making our spiritual life a priority in our relationships.
