What We Can learn From Jonah’s Prayer

“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said,“I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead and Lord, you heard me! You threw me into the ocean depths, and I sank down to the heart of the sea. The mighty waters engulfed me; I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves. Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence. Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.”….As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple…But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise,
 and I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.”
– Jonah 2:1-9.

It is harder to imagine a more unique prayer closet than a big fish. But this is where Jonah prayed to God. Jonah makes a series of questionable series of decisions and subsequent steps. Maybe you can see yourself in a few of the steps that Jonah took: God gives us a command to do something. After quick consideration, we decide we are not going to follow His command. We believe we have valid reasons for not listening to God. God allows a crisis moment in our lives in which we believe we have hit rock bottom and we cry out to God. We ask for God’s forgiveness and the opportunity to be restored out of the mess we find ourselves in. God restores us and sets us on the right path again. We understand God’s original command and decide to do what God is asking us to do. 

So here we have Jonah, lying in the belly of a fish, seaweed wrapped around his neck, and generally having a very bad day. It would seem like to good time to cry out to God and Jonah does. It is very unlikely that we will find ourselves in the same circumstances as Jonah, but there is something in Jonah’s prayer for you today.  For example, we can learn the fundamental truth that God is always accessible.  

“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, “I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble, and he answered me.” (Jonah 2:1-2)  Jonah was a prophet, but he was infallible. The prayer in Jonah 2 is the words of a desperate man who could have turned inward and sunk further into separation from God.  But he realized that even in his sin, God was still close by.  God could have allowed Jonah to drown.  He could have started over with someone else.  He did not.  In His grace, He allows the fish to swallow up Jonah and in that, Jonah realizes he has been spared and given a second chance.  As dark as the place is where he sits, God is not far off and distant. God is near.   

The prayer also points out that God wants to restore us. “As my life was slipping away, I remembered the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to you in your holy Temple.” (Jonah 2:7) 

Sometimes we feel unworthy and undeserving. We have nothing to give to Him, nor could we ever repay Him. The great thing about Jonah’s change in the belly of the fish is that it forces him to rely upon the character of God, not his own.    

God is just as close in your tough times, your trials and your desperate moments as when the seas are calm around you.  He hears and answers your prayers as He did for Jonah. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Why is it important to pray when you feel hopeless? 
  2. What can we learn from Jonah’s prayer that we can apply in our lives this week?  

When You Hit Rock Bottom

“Sometimes God lets you hit rock bottom so you will discover that He is the rock at the bottom” – Toby Mac.    

There’s an old cliché that says, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” In other words, when the battle rages and the bullets fly, people tend to pray. There’s just something about realizing that you’re out of options and in need of divine intervention. Jonah experienced this kind of moment as the sailors tossed him overboard into the rough and stormy sea. You see, Jonah didn’t like the idea of preaching in the dangerous city of Nineveh, so he ran. That was Jonah’s first mistake. Thankfully, even when we run from God, God never stops pursuing us.

When we run from God, we will continue running into God. As Jonah ran, he stumbled into one problem after another. Some of those problems impacted his own life, while other problems spilled over into the lives of others: the sailors on the ship found out that God will show up even if you are running from Him. Jonah should have read what Jeremiah said in chapter 23 verse 24: “Can anyone hide from me in a secret place? Am I not everywhere in all the heavens and earth?” says the Lord.

Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom. It took Jonah being tossed into the sea and facing imminent death before he asked God for help. It didn’t have to be this way for Jonah, and it doesn’t have to be this way for us. You don’t have to be in the belly of the fish to hit rock bottom. It can happen in the form of a personal tragedy, accident, sickness, relationship crisis, job loss, or financial problem.  

After 3 days in the stomach of a whale, where God provided for Jonah and changed his heart, Jonah was given another chance. His rock bottom was the firm foundation for rebuilding his life to higher levels than he ever imagined before. God caused the whale to spit him up and Jonah survived the whole ordeal. And don’t miss this, Jonah turned around in the right direction and headed to Ninevah. It wasn’t too late for Jonah to do the right thing. It’s not too late for you and me to do the right thing either. We may have been in a bad situation making some bad choices, screwing up this thing called life, but it’s not too late for us. God hasn’t given up on you. He can use this. He wants to use us.

Jonah went to Ninevah and God used him to change the entire city. God uses people who have gotten on the wrong path. God uses people who have made a real mess of things on occasion. God is searching for people who are willing to turn themselves around and start making the right choices today.  

There’s real hope for whatever you’re going through, whatever loss, whatever hurt. God offers hope to people that hit rock bottom. There’s hope. God is waiting and watching and longing to forgive you.  There is a father to cleanse you and to restore you and to empower you and give you a second chance.  There is a father who gives you a clean slate and puts you on a new path.

Discussion Questions:

  1. When have you, like Jonah, been in a desperate circumstance of your own making? How did you respond? What do you learn from Jonah’s response? 
  2. Is there an area of your life that you are desperate to change? Is there anything stopping you from praying? 

Stuck In A Rut

“How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” – Psalm 19:12-14. 

Humans are creatures of habit and can get attached to routines. While repeated patterns of doing things are essential, if put on autopilot, their effectiveness diminishes. Consider your spiritual life: Are you going through the motions, feeling like you were stuck in a rut? In Psalm 19, the Psalmist is telling us if we want to connect with God in an intimate way, communicate with Him through prayer. 

If you want to pray passionately, if you want a genuine concern for your holiness, if you want to pray from deep within the heart, if you want the opposite of a spiritual rut, knowing you are hearing God and He is hearing you, refrain from instantly asking God for something. The first 11 verses of Psalm 19 are focusing on hearing God, learning from God, and reflecting on what God has said in His word and nature.  

When you listen to God, then you know God is listening to you. If we never listen to what God has to say and we are simply talking over Him by only making requests, a real conversation with God is not happening. If you skip right to your needs without connecting with God personally, it is one-way communication.

If we never seek to hear His voice it’s no wonder we feel disconnected from God and stuck in a rut spiritually. Prayer is a conversation. God speaks and listens to us, and He expects us to do the same. When we connect with God, God can lift us out of any spiritual rut.

Ruts often occur because we default to thinking that God is big, and therefore removed, distant, and has better things to do than care about our daily anxieties. Yes, I know He “cares” about me. He cares about everyone. But right now I feel like there is a chasm between God and me and as a result, prayer seems futile. The beauty of God’s love is that it survives spiritual ruts. The most faithful and happiest Christians in history have experienced spiritual ruts. 

Diligently seeking God is the only way to get out of a religious rut. He will help you see things differently and give you a new attitude that is refreshing and attractive. People will gravitate to you hoping a little of your enthusiasm and positive mindset for God will rub off on them. Times with God will be exciting and stimulating as you make conscious decisions to learn from Him in every encounter.

Spend time in prayer each day with your Heavenly Father and watch the rut disappear.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What constitutes being in a spiritual rut in your mind? 
  2. Do you feel spiritually stuck in a rut, stagnant, going through the motions, too comfortable? How did you move past it?
  3. What can you do this week to move out of a spiritual rut? 

Jonah, Us, And Trust

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” – Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV).

The story of Jonah is a story that can seem a little outlandish for the average person. They can’t wrap their minds around the storm, the big fish, the city’s revival, the sun, the east wind, and the plant all playing a role in this four-chapter saga. If not for the Christian’s belief in the inerrancy and validity of Scripture, it would be easy to see this as fiction. The reality is we can relate to Jonah because we too have the urge to run when God is seeking to interrupt our life and plans with His plan.   

I wish Jonah had the hindsight of reading the four chapters as we have. He would have seen that what he considered an unreasonable request was really an invitation to participate in one of the more supernatural events in all the Old Testament—one that would not only make a mark in the Old but the New Testament as well. Luke 11:30 says, “What happened to him was a sign to the people of Nineveh that God had sent him. What happens to the Son of Man will be a sign to these people that he was sent by God.” He couldn’t have known that his story would be studied by millions desiring to draw closer to his God. 

How often are we in a place where we either can’t figure out what God is doing and disagree when God invites us to change our plans for His? It is easy when everything is going well. But what happens when the road is strewn with potholes and God seems to be leading you into the middle of nowhere. We accept God’s power and sovereignty, but we do question His plans just like Jonah. If we could only see the end of the road. 

The good news is we don’t need to see the end as much as we need to remember some fundamental truths. God can’t be measured. God can’t be contained, nor can He be explained. But He can be trusted. God sees more than we can see. He knows more than we know. He works in ways beyond our comprehension. (Isaiah 55:8-11) And if we agree to follow Him only when we understand and agree with what He’s doing, we’ll never experience a life built on trust.  The Bible is littered with examples of trust.  David praised God in the wilderness, even though he didn’t understand why he was running for his life instead of sitting on the throne. The Israelites praised God with a mighty shout before they knew how Jericho’s wall would fall. We can praise God as well knowing that what we know about Him is far more important than what we don’t. 

The question for you and all of us is: Will we trust Him? The unexpected is always an opportunity to experience more of who God is. When we finally stop focusing on our plans we can begin to see God begin to work His higher purposes.

Discussion Questions:

  1. What does trust in God mean to you? 
  2. What competes with or inhibits our trust in God? 
  3. What does trust empower us to do?

God Is In Control

“Believe steadfastly on Him and everything that challenges you will strengthen your faith. There is continual testing in the life of faith up to the point of our physical death, which is the last great test. Faith is absolute trust in God-trust that could never imagine that He would forsake us.” – Oswald Chambers

Most everyone is familiar with the book of Jonah. Ask almost any child who goes to church and they’ll tell you Jonah is about a big fish, or a man running from God, or the bad people of Nineveh. In reality, the book of Jonah is about none of those things. Yes, they are all important parts of the story. But the book of Jonah is also about something completely different. Jonah is a book written to reinforce the fact that God is in control.

God speaks the first words in the book of Jonah (1:1-2) and He speaks the final words (4:10-11). Book, kids programs and most sermons focus on the actors of the story (Jonah, fish, etc,). Few resources focus on God as the central character in the book of Jonah. It was God who sent the storm to halt Jonah (1:4). God sent the big fish to save Jonah (1:17). And, lest we forget, it was God who sent Jonah in the first place and God who saved the people of Nineveh. Jonah is a book about God and His sovereignty.

Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire. History tells us the Assyrians were brutal people who were notoriously cruel to their enemies. The Assyrians and the Israelites lived in close proximity and had battled in the past. The city of Nineveh was large and was a pagan culture that would not have taken kindly to a Jew telling them to seek salvation from His God. God had pity for the people of Nineveh, who were far from God. God had pity on us when we were far from God

We have to always remember that God has compassion for the lost. We were once like the people of Nineveh. We were like the pagan sailors bowing down to false gods.  We were like the wayward prophet knowing of God’s mercy, but not truly knowing His mercy personally.  We were lost so God sent His Son Jesus Christ to demonstrate true compassion. This is the epitome of compassion. Jesus gave His life for us and now He expects us to do the same.

Jonah reminds us God is in control. He is sovereign and only He controls outcomes. God didn’t need Jonah to preach to Nineveh, but in His great pleasure He chose to use His sinful servant. God does not need to use us to call His elect to Himself, but it pleases Him to do so. Embrace your calling to share the gospel with the lost, not because you fear a big fish, but because you desire to see God’s glory multiplied on the earth.

God is in control of all things and His control always works for our good.  We may not always feel His presence or see His hand, but we can know for a certainty that God is working.  God is working because God is always at work.  Jonah shows us God’s gracious control to pursue the disobedient prophet, the pagan sailors, and the people of Nineveh.  God is working, so ask yourself, “Will you work with Him? Or will you flee from Him?”

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you believe God is in control of everything? Explain why you believe He is or is not in control of everything.
  2. When was the last time you obeyed God even when His order did not make sense to you?  

A Strange Solution

“Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.” – Jonah 1:12.

On the surface, being asked to be thrown into the sea seems a strange solution for the problem that Jonah was facing. Follow the timeline. God tells you to go to Nineveh. You don’t want to do it, so you run away. Instead of going where God wants, you go on a vacation cruise. God sends a huge storm, which threatens your life and the lives of everyone on board. The crew finds out the storm is because of you, and they ask what can be done about it. What is the logical answer?

The logical answer is, “Turn around! Head the other direction. Take me to Nineveh. That’s where God wants me to go.” But Jonah tells them to throw him overboard into the sea. It would seem that Jonah would rather die than go to Nineveh. We do not know if he could swim or not, but in a storm like this, it would not matter. Throwing a man into a storm like this is essentially putting that man to death by drowning.  

What is more surprising still is looking at this from the viewpoint of the sailors. They were pagan, idol worshipers. But they are hesitant to throw Jonah overboard so they try to row back to land. “Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it.” (Jonah 1:13)   

They cannot make it to land, and the sea gets more violent. So they finally do what Jonah asks. But first, they do something rather surprising. They pray. Before they throw Jonah overboard to his death, they pray to God. They know He is in control of the storm, and hope that He does not hold them accountable for killing one of His children.“Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.” Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him.” (Jonah 1:14-15)

They are obeying a God they know nothing about.  In response to their actions, in response to their prayer and throwing Jonah overboard, the raging sea grew calm. They were awestruck by the Lord’s great power and vowed to serve him.

Unbelievers may believe when we finally do what God wants us to do. Look at the sailors. They’ve seen the storm immediately stop. They were awestruck by God’s greatness and they worshiped God. And they offered a sacrifice to God, and they made vows. They made promises to God, “God, we’re going your way from now on.” The whole ship is converted. When you start fulfilling your mission, people around you that you never thought would be believers in God or Christ, are going to come to Christ. It just happens. Because, all of a sudden, they see that you are walking in calmness, not in stress, and not in a storm. And they go, “Whoa, I want that in my life.”

Discussion Questions:

  1. How can your mission in life impact unbelievers?

Running Man

“The Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship.” – Jonah 1:4–5.  

If you’re an athlete or coach there is a good chance you’ve competed against a rival team in your league, region, or conference. There may be bad blood built up over the years because the two teams dislike each other and are out to embarrass the other team each time they play them. Now, imagine if someone asked you to serve and help this team. You would probably roll your eyes and say “no way.” 

That is the problem Jonah had. He could not stand the people of Nineveh. He disliked them. He felt they were not worthy of hearing the message of forgiveness and redemption. He wanted to see God punish and destroy them, not rescue, forgive and redeem them. So God was sending him to share a message of warning and forgiveness to the people he could not stand.  

Our society is full of anger, hatred, prejudice, division and needs to hear about eternal life. And so we Christians need to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem. The solution is never arguing, complaining, and running away. The solution is always Jesus Christ and a redeemed and transformed heart. 

Jonah decides to make a run for it. He goes to Joppa and pays to board a ship heading for parts unknown. But Jonah was about to find out that it is costly to go in a different direction other than the one God is asking of us.  

Jonah was making good his escape when the powerful wind struck. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. God will make life miserable for the person who willfully runs from a known call or mission. 

God was ready to use Jonah as a messenger delivering a life-changing prophecy to the people of Nineveh. But Jonah, probably out of fear and uncertainty, decided to do things his way. What trouble his disobedience caused not only for him but also for those around him.

When God has a job for you to do, your obedience is all that is required, your understanding is not. Because of the human condition, it is easy to think your way is the better than the plan God has laid out, but you might find yourself in the midst of a storm of your own making that effects you and those you love.

Before you get yourself in such a perilous state, follow God’s plan from the beginning, life is just better if you do it right from the very start. But, if for whatever reason(s), you find that you haven’t done things quite the way God has said, look at how God tried to get Jonah’s attention, and get him back in His perfect will.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you ever tried to run from God’s will for your life? How did that work out? 
  2. What are some of the ways God pursues Jonah in this passage? What are some of the ways God pursues us when we run from Him?
  3. Is there anything God could ask you to do, today, that you would say “no” to? If so, what is it and why would you say no?

The Peace That Surpasses All Understanding

“As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants . . . What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.” – Genesis 28:12,13,15. 

At some point in our life’s journey, we come to realize how inadequate we are to deal with all that life throws our way. At some point, we realize the things we fought so hard to attain or to achieve simply did not satisfy our desires or meet our expectations. Especially when there is a pandemic affecting the world. People seem to be working harder, competing for more, and clamoring for more stuff.  Yet others still aspire to a career and then discover that the career they envisioned has been replaced by long hours, a long commute, and heavy traffic. It affects their life, their marriages, their relationship with their kids. Peace seems to be a difficult thing to obtain.  

Look at the story of Jacob. In short, Jacob’s life was a mess. He had to leave home much earlier than planned because his brother Esau was so angry at him that he was comforting himself with the thought of murdering Jacob. As if looking over his shoulder was not enough, Jacob fled his homeland and found himself in unfamiliar surroundings. His pillow was a rock; the ground was his bed. He faced many dangers, and his only companion was his guilty conscience. Peace was nowhere to be found. 

That’s when the Lord revealed himself to Jacob in a dream, to bring Jacob the peace he desperately needed. In the dream, there was a stairway with angels going up and down. The Lord himself was at the top. He assured Jacob, “I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.” God gave Jacob the one thing that he could find nowhere else—peace. 

Feeling stuck in life or a situation can sometimes lead to isolation or confusion. At some point we realize we cannot fill the lingering void in our heart on our own. While the pursuits of pleasure, relationships, money, power, and other things may satisfy us for a short time, we ultimately find that the empty longing inside us always returns. It is at this point we discover the strength to fill this void can only come from the One who placed it there. We discover the love and the power of our risen Lord and Savior. We discover Jesus.

There are many challenges that confront us today.  There are many possibilities for being afraid, for there is plenty of fuel for fear in our world. And just like Jacob, peace is impossible for us to find—until we discover God’s gracious promises in Jesus. All sin is paid. We are forgiven through Christ. There may be questions, but in Christ, there is no question about where we stand with God and that true peace is found in Him. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. Do you feel like you can’t ever find peace? Or that life is just too overwhelming? What can change all that?   
  2. What can you do this week to be anxious for nothing? 

The Imperfect Spouse

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” – Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV).

There is one thing that all married couples have in common in addition to being married: everyone is married to an imperfect, fallible human being. In fact, James 3:2 promises you that your spouse is capable of finding new and unique ways to disappoint you when he states, “for we all stumble in many ways.” Notice the words “all” and “many.” No spouse avoids this reality. They all stumble in many ways.

Since every person is married to an imperfect spouse, every married person will have legitimate disappointments in their marriage. How can you learn to appreciate an imperfect spouse?  Acceptance and encouragement are two biblical requirements to consider.

Romans 15:7 says, “Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.“ 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, “So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.” 

Share the grace that God gave you with your spouse.  It takes great spiritual maturity to love, to offer grace, and to give someone the same spiritual benefits we ourselves have received from our heavenly Father. Get in touch with how much God has done for you — how He has seen every wicked act you’ve ever committed; heard every syllable of gossip; noticed every malicious, ugly, and hateful thought — and still, He loves and died for you. And He’s forgiven you. Transform the focus of your expectations from what you expect of your spouse to what God expects of you. We can’t make any one person do what we think they should do. But we can surrender to what God would have us do in light of that.

A healthy habit is to ask God to change you. When conflict happens ask God to help you with specific weaknesses of your own. That’s right — as backward as it may sound, respond to temptations to judge your spouse by praying for God to change you.

Every one of us is married to an imperfect spouse. We confront different trials, different temptations, and different struggles—but each one of us faces the same reality: living as imperfect people, in an imperfect world, with an imperfect spouse. Learning to love, appreciate, and be thankful for that imperfect spouse is one of the most soul-transforming things you can do. It’s not an easy journey, but it’s a profitable one, and I urge you to commit to it today.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Is it possible to find the perfect marriage with an imperfect spouse? Why or why not? 
  2. What can we do this week to improve our marriage with an imperfect partner? 

Respect And Love

“So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” – Ephesians 5:33

Men and women are completely equal in a marriage, but God created us with different sets of needs. He designed marriage to allow a husband and wife to meet each other’s needs. Husbands are instructed to love their wives as they love themselves. You might think that wives are instructed to love their husbands, but if you read the Bible from cover to cover, you will never find a command that says, “Wives, love your husbands!” It is implied: for example, Titus 2: 4 says, “These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children…” So, of course, wives are supposed to love their husbands although you will not find the exhortation “love your husbands” in the Bible.  

What you will find over and over in Scripture, is this command: “Wives, respect your husband.” These verses tell us that that the number one need of a husband is respect. And when the husband senses respect from his wife, he will believe he is loved as well.  Paul doesn’t say, “respect your husband the same way your friends respect their husbands.” He doesn’t even say, “respect your husband like your mother respected your father.” He doesn’t qualify it at all. Respect your husband, period. That’s the standard the Bible gives to women.

Wives are called to submit to their husbands, husbands are called to love their wives and both are called to love and submit to God. These roles cannot be supported if there is no respect. Respect is basically the acknowledgment of each other’s roles, personalities and qualities and holding it in high regard. A husband plays his role better when respected but so do wives. If we don’t respect our spouse, we not only affect our spouse’s role, but our roles as well.

Respect does not exist without love and love will always give birth to respect. As we learn to love our spouse more and more without condition or premise, we will naturally see more respect grow out of it. Love spurs us to deny ourselves, accommodate the needs of others, put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, etc. Respect means to esteem, to regard, to value, to look up to, to admire, to heed, to notice, to consider, to recognize, to defer to, to honor, and to be kind to. The bottom line is that love and respect come down to choosing to esteem someone and their God-given role, even when it’s demanding, challenging and requires us to get uncomfortable.  

Respect brings about change. There is no doubt that there are people reading this devotional and thinking that the author has obviously never met my husband. He does things that eliminate any notion of respect. That may well be true. But just as the unconditional love of Christ can change us, so can the unconditional respect that we give to our spouse change them. There are many times when it’s not easy for a wife to give her husband respect. It takes lots of patience and prayers to let God take control of you and make you able to make wise choices when it comes to respecting your husband. Much of marriage was meant to be unconditional in the same way God is unconditional about many things in our relationship with Him. 

Discussion Questions:

  1. How do you go about loving your wife as Christ loved the church? 
  2. What can you do this week to forgive your spouse, love him or her first, and cooperating with God in your marriage this week?