Do You Need a Road Map for Your Marriage?

Last week’s blog was about intentionally deciding you want a great marriage, not settling for an “ok” marriage. The idea was to start to think about what a great marriage might look like to you and your husband. 

This week let’s talk more about how you can start to move toward that. The idea is that you need a road map. I don’t know about you but I don’t have a great sense of direction. I personally never really learned how to read an old fashion map (they used to make those maps on paper) :).  I also just did not have a good sense of which way to go. That is problematic if you are driving without a map, without a phone (GPS), or something else to help you. Yes, there may be road signs along the way, but you may be totally off course, having wasted a lot of gas, time and money before you realize you are headed in the wrong direction without any kind of map. 

Many times, that is what we do in our marriages. We just get married (probably spend a boatload of time, money and energy to have the wedding we want) but then maybe not real plan or direction for the marriage should be like. We simply just coast, we just react as life comes along. We normally talk or think about if we should change jobs, take a certain position or not, rent or decide to buy a home, decide about having children or not. We often think, plan, and make decisions on these things in life which are all important things but, we may miss some of the most important. 

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What God calls you to be in your marriage may be very different from what He calls your best friend or sister to do in their marriage.

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Have we set out a road map for our marriage? Do we have a vision? What does that even mean? Well, it means the same thing it means in other areas of life. Where do you want to end up? Once you know that, what are your options on getting there? What do you want to be as a couple? What do you want to define your marriage? Now, there are as many varied answers as there are questions. What God calls you to be in your marriage may be very different from what He calls your best friend or sister to do in their marriage.

 We need to start with what is our vision for our marriage? What is the roadmap to get us there? Again, that will look different for each couple. What if your vision is that you are open to however many children God wants you to have (biological, adopted). What might that look like then for you to remain open to that? What if you want to be financially able to give anytime there is a need God puts in your path? How might you need to make decisions about your money, where you live etc, to be able to do that? There are a thousand other things that might be a part of who you want to be as a couple, how do you want to be defined. 

The neat thing is that this is the vision God gives to both of you. It is exciting to be intentional and purposeful as you move toward that. Having a vision, having a road map helps you say Yes, to what is best and fits in your plan and saying No, even to some good things if they don’t fit the vision for your marriage. It is freeing and it gives you a much better chance to end up where you want to be if you know where you want to go, and have a road map to get you there. 

~Carla