Don’t Let the Marriage Well Go Dry

You can listen to the post on the Refresh Her podcast.

I grew up a city girl and never had a well on our property. However, I know enough to say that if you have a well on your land and it goes dry, you have problems! How would one know if the well was beginning to dry up? Let’s get the picture of that dry well in our head. You go to the faucet to get a drink and you notice some problems –

• The taste of the water has changed.
• The water is murky instead of clear.
• The pump on the well is turning on and off more frequently.
• The faucet is sputtering.

I’m so thankful that every month I have the reminder of Proverbs 5:15 –

Drink waters out of thine own cistern,
and running waters out of thine own well.

Simply put, let your desires be satisfied from your own marriage relationship.  The end.

These are all signs that the marriage well is going dry ~

• Marriage isn’t as sweet as it used to be!
• Spouses hearts (one or both) are working out of the flesh instead of the Spirit)
• There isn’t a steady outpouring of love and commitment – it’s on and off.
• Communication is lacking.

I want us to think about the “running waters from your own well.”  You can’t drink if “the well has gone dry.” Many couples think they can pull up their bucket and there will always be water there when they have let their hearts become disengaged and they’ve let the well dry up!

How can we keep the loving waters flowing in our marriages? (I’m going to share two encouragements today and two next week.)

1. Treasure marriage.  See it as the gift God intended it to be.
   1. Ask the Lord to help you love your husband as the years pass, as you both age, and as both your needs change.
   2. Keep close to your heart how the Lord brought you together and all the reasons you got married in the first place!
   3. Instead of zeroing in on the irritants, stare at the things you love about him!
      Here’s an illustration that helps me…Your husband comes into the kitchen with one of his good dress shirts on and you look at the front pocket and you see a blob of blue ink that came from an ink pen he had resting in the pocket.  How much of the shirt is ruined?  1%?  Maybe.  Maybe even lots less than that, but where do our eyes land?  Not on the rest of the white shirt, but on the ink spot. We can’t get our eyes off of it!
      The application –
      We love our husband – he’s a godly man, wonderful provider and a hundred other blessings, but there’s this ONE thing that is so irritating and we just can’t get our eyes off of it!  We fixate on it.  We nag him about it.  We roll our eyes and sigh.
      If we treasured our marriage, we would make the choice to look at the “99% White shirt” instead of the “ink spot”
2. Confess sin.  Check your own heart to be sure you have no unconfessed sin. I John 1:9 reminds us that if we call it what God calls it (pride, selfishness, moodiness, etc) God will forgive us.  I remember during the time of Covid when we were at home together 24/7, I saw my own selfishness in its true light. I felt like Dale was “invading MY space.” MY space? We live in our home together. It belongs to US, not ME. Wow. I had to confess my selfishness to God and my husband. Clean hearts make for sweet water.
   It’s hard impossible to love, serve, give, or forgive if you have sin in your life.
   We can’t do anything about our spouse’s heart, but I have to say, it’s so convicting to me when I’m walking in my sinful flesh and my husband, led by the Spirit of God, comes in so sweetly and serves me or speaks gently to me. His obedience is convicting to me!  My words and actions could be as much a blessing to him if I would get my heart right with God and then be the wife God wants me to be.

This week let’s think about those two truths that can help our marriage well from drying up –

Treasure Marriage
Confess sin.

Refresh your marriage by keeping the waters flowing!