The Gift Of Time

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.” – Luke 6:38. 

When love is newly in the air, you want to spend every waking minute with the object of your affection. Even a few hours spent apart feels like an eternity, and you cannot wait for the anticipated reunion when you are once again in the company of your loved one. But strange things happen when you get married. That desire to spend all that one-on-one time together begins to dissipate. I believe that couples with strong relationships spend a couple hours a day in one-on-one, intentional time together. Yes, it can be a challenge to find that much time, but it is worth it.    

The reality is you will drift away from your spouse when you don’t make time to talk and interact with a specific purpose, rather than just idle chit chat. The same thing happens when we forget to pray and are so busy you don’t make time to meet with God. We begin to drift away. Just as we need to be intentional in our relationship with God to mature spiritually, we have to do the same in our marriages to grow closer to our spouse.

The obvious answer is to make time for each other. Maybe we need to move it up on our priority list. It may be that we stop doing some things, or maybe we need to learn to say no, or maybe we just need to get better at time management. You don’t get much credit for going through the motions or doing the bare minimum. Nothing is likely to improve if you spend a few minutes now and again just for show, so you can check that marriage requirement as being completed. Marriages, in fact all relationships, will not grow deeper or richer on minimal efforts and on tidbits and leftovers. Eventually, a successful marriage requires more. Spending time with your spouse reduces arguments, misunderstandings, miscommunication and will go a long way to reducing conflict. 

We should expect more as husband and wife. It’s too easy to give our best time and energy away to everyone and everything else, other than the one you vowed before God to “love, honor, and cherish.”  It is hard to see how we can be loving, honoring, and cherishing our spouse if we never spend any quality time with him or her.   

Once you start making it a routine for a couple of weeks, it will become more natural and normal to you. And, you and your spouse will have that personal time to talk about or talk through anything that you need to — life, work, each other, the kids, your spiritual walk with Christ.    

Discussion Questions: 

1. Is there more “me” time or more “our” time in your marriage? 
2. What can we do this week to make more time for our marriage/relationships?