Invoking Joy in Your Marriage

I will never forget when my dear friend and I were having a conversation after Steve and I had married. We were probably in our first year of marriage, and I was mentioning how I needed my husband to do something. I can’t remember the exact project, but it was definitely becoming an issue. This godly woman said, “Lori, you just need to learn to nag; trust me, it won’t take long.” And though I knew she meant it harmlessly, I also knew at that moment the Holy Spirit was speaking to me about nagging. My first thought was that I never wanted Steve to be able to think or say to another that I was a “nag.” That word and all it means sound so harsh and ugly to me. I also realized how many women do nag their husbands, yet cover it with a little laugh at the end. Even as I write this, I am convicted about how many times I’ve done this very thing and have forgotten how God spoke to me on this subject so many years ago. I want to invoke joy in my husband. I want to have the joy of Christ bubbling out of me so that it is contagious to him. Nagging is a great way to squelch joy, intimacy, transparency, and give yourself a reputation of being a wife that is difficult to please.

Taken from the “Called to be a Keeper” Bible study.

May we all seek to please God in our marriage.
In His Love,
Lori