Marriage By Design ONLINE!
Exercises to Transform You and Your Relationships
Lesson Four – Your Spouse is a Gift, Your Appreciation Shows
Recommended:
Read the Bible – Genesis 2:15-18a; Read our Book – Chapters 4 and 5
Exercises for Married Couples and those in Exclusive Relationships:
- (Couple Project): How you “see” your spouse will impact how you treat them. Discuss how you want your spouse to see you, speak to you, and what they call you. Consider together how these actions can significantly increase or decrease your level of intimacy in your marriage relationship.
- (Couple Project): Individually write down your definition or description of “intimacy” and what it looks like, and feels like, to you in your marriage relationship. Then take some time to share what each of you wrote. Be careful not to criticize each other’s thoughts or feelings. Use this as an opportunity to further the level of intimacy in your relationship.
- (Individual Assignment): Give special time in prayer this week asking God to give you a renewed heart and vision of your spouse that will allow you to appreciate them as a special “gift from God”, deserving your best treatment of them. Then write a letter of commitment to your spouse telling them how you will show your love and respect for them each day.
- (Special Project): Meet with a Pastor couple, Mentor couple, or Counselor couple, and share with them what each of you has discovered about your view of intimacy in a marriage relationship, and your spouse’s view. Encourage your advisor(s) to help you both understand the depth of meaning of intimacy in a marriage relationship, and ways to accomplish that more deeply in your marriage relationship, as they have learned from their own experiences.
A Prayer for You:
Dear heavenly Father, thank you for this reminder of just how impactful our eyes, our heart, and our words are to the covenant marriage you have designed for us. Give me a greater insight and heart of appreciation for just how special my spouse is to me. Let my renewed heart of appreciation for you and my gift, lead us to a deeper, stronger, richer, and more intimate marriage relationship. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.