Johnny and I recently had the incredible experience of being gifted a trip to the Holy Land. There are many overwhelming things that I saw while in Israel, but I wanted to share about one site.
I don’t know if you have ever read or seen pictures of the fortress called Masada. It was built in the year 30 BC by King Herod the Great. The structure is massive, and it had elaborate systems to allow water to be collected and contained in cisterns, and storehouses of food, so if they were sieged by any enemy, they would have the supplies to outlast them. The insight and architectural plans are what struck me.
The plan was to have the fortress impenetrable to the enemy and filled with what they needed to survive. Do we ever look at our marriages like this?
I think we need to ask ourselves these questions:
· Is my marriage a fortress?
· What material am I using to build?
· Am I storing what is needed, for times of trouble?
There is wisdom in laying a strong foundation. How do we lay a strong foundation? We do the intentional things. We continue to connect, we schedule times together. We continue to learn and practice ways to improve our communication. We learn better ways to handle conflict. We date each other. We make “us” the priority.
The material we use is what we bring or pour into the marriage. Do I bring encouragement to my spouse, do I pray for them, do I practice doing loving kind things, do I look for the good, focus on what I have; not what I don’t? Or is my material criticism, comparison, complaints, bitterness, and negativity. The material we use will make all the difference in how resilient our fortress is.
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“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock."
~Matthew 7:24-25"
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Do we have enough food and water to survive? Have we stored wisely? What we have stored or not will become apparent quickly when the siege begins. Every marriage will encounter times of feeling like you are under attack. Sometimes this is of our own self making; but other times it is the result of living in a fallen, broken world. Hard things come into our lives, and we feel the pressure of the siege on our marriage. What we want to do is to have enough water and food, to carry us through. This is where you dip into the cistern where you collected the water. You pull out of the times that you poured into your marriage. You survive, and even flourish because you prepared.
So, I ask you, is your marriage a fortress? If not, I would challenge you to start where you are to make it one.
~Carla