Deposits and Withdrawals in the Love Bank

Do you look at your marriage through God's eyes?  Do you see your spouse the way God does?  Do you know what your spouse sees when he looks at you? These are tough questions, but reflecting on them can be a real eye opener.

Marriage is hard...very hard.  Anyone who tells you it isn't is either lying to themselves or to you. Blending together two different people with two different backgrounds and two different personalities could almost seemed doomed from the start.  But the good news is, God wants to be right in the middle of the mix. His presence in your marriage takes what is hard, and makes it also good and sweet and comforting.


I hear so many people say that they don't care what their spouse thinks;  if there is something they want to do, they are going to do it regardless of what their spouse thinks. Selfishness seems to run rampant in marriage.  I can guarantee you, that is not the way God designed marriage to work, and it won't work that way for very long.  Jesus is our example of having a servant's heart.  Even while being betrayed and spat upon, He loved and forgave and went to the cross for the guilty ones.  I'm not suggesting that we suffer abuse or violence.  I'm talking about the ebb and flow of every day life, the things that upset and frustrate us, the actions that make us mad and try our patience.

I see marriage like a dance, weaving and moving to different beats and rhythms, trying not to step on each other's feet, sometimes holding close and other times at a distance, but always trying to move together.  There are days that my husband leads the dance and others days when I am in the lead.  But the music we are moving to is the breath of God on our relationship.  If we let Him orchestrate the dance, there is always hope, always forgiveness, always love.

My mom and dad

When we get out of step or out of sorts with each other, it's usually because we have our eyes on ourselves and not on the other person.  Wouldn't marriage be a wonder if we were both trying to outdo the other on serving each other? What would that look like?  I watched my parents do that very thing until the day my mom left this earth.  It was truly something to behold. Taking turns, one depositing love, one making a withdrawal.  Always making sure the account never ran dry!

If you have days when you are weak and troubled by life, wouldn't it be a joy to have your spouse recognize it and do what they could to minister to you, until you are so filled up with the love they're giving you, that you are back on top?  The secret is that you should be doing that for them too.  Somebody has to give up the idea of being "right" and be the first one to say, "I'll be the one.  I'll be unselfish towards you, even when I don't want to.  Even when I don't feel like it."  Can you be that one?  Can you give up your right to be right and instead, look for ways to minister to your spouse?

As you spend time with God, His strength will build in you and you will find yourself not reacting to your spouse in anger or frustration so quickly.  You might even see them through the eyes of God.  You can ask the Lord to show you what your spouse needs from you.  Now, I know sometimes it's lonely to be the one to start having a servant's heart toward your honey when they aren't acting the same way towards you.  You may have to make a lot of love deposits before you get to make a withdrawal.  But I promise you, God is faithful and wants our marriages to work...and not just work...but be happy and fulfilling for both people.

What things do you do to make love deposits in your marriage account?  Are you making more withdrawals than deposits?  What changes can you make to bring God into the mix of your marriage so that it isn't just hard, but also sweet?

From His Lap,