Can it really be called work, the commitment we put into our marriages?
Yes.
Hopefully, the work is only intermittent and harmony is abundant. But, there are inevitably seasons of real hard work.
It’s a different kind of work than the daily toil of going to the office or factory. It’s a work of the heart. It can be more excruciating than the longest, most boring, board meeting. And more trying than the snarkiest of co-workers.
The work of the heart is to ultimately honor God. By working through problems you’d rather not face, you are honoring God. You are living out your promise, “I’ll stick with this person for the rest of my life.”
In the Sir Isaac Newton world, work is a force that moves an object. Work transfers energy from one object to another. Work can only happen if there is movement.
If you hold your arm straight out with a 5 pound weight in your hand, your arm is going to tire out, but no work has been done. The only time work happens is if you lift the weight higher. The larger the movement, the more measurable work has happened.
Work has an expectation of movement.
In marriage, there is an expectation of movement, growth. Work transfers the energy of love, but it also transfers the expectation of growth.
One spouse sees the other doing selfless ‘movement of an object’ (i.e. diminishing stubbornness, arrogance, argumentativeness, infusing with patience, sweet tone, improving the libido etc…). This builds a little fire in your mate’s heart. It’s easy to see, in a real way, the work your heart is doing.
Expect growth to be contagious. It spreads with the transfer of energy (love).
“….but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up,” Galatians 6:8&9.
‘Move an object’ today that will bless your spouse and celebrate this Labor Day with the measure of your heart’s work.
“Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain;
unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchman stays alert in vain,” Psalm 127:1.
photocredit: Silvia Sala via photopin cc
