Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY
/
As If They’ve Already Arrived
As If They’ve Already Arrived
Nov 5, 2024 1:49 PM

  As If They’ve Already Arrived

  By Jennifer Waddle

  Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another. -Romans 14:19

  I remember the first time I heard the concept of treating your spouse as if they’d already “arrived.” I admit, I was skeptical.

  The idea behind it is to stop complaining about what your spouse isn’t doing, and start encouraging them in the things they are doing. I was afraid to try it, worried that my husband would start to think he was doing everything right! But I also knew something had to change, so, despite my skepticism, I decided to give it a try.

  My biggest complaint was that I felt like my husband didn’t spend enough time leading our family spiritually. For years, I would take the lead in this area and then act like a martyr because of it. Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

  However, when I started treating him as if he’d already arrived, in the sense of regularly encouraging him in his faith, real change began to take place. I began to be thankful instead of critical, and supportive instead of combative. Even when I felt like he was missing the mark, I stopped getting upset over it and started taking it to God. Here are some of the remarkable things that happened when I started treating my husband as if he’d already arrived.

  1. I became extremely thankful for the small things.

  My husband took us to church, he prayed at the dinner table, he read the Bible on his Bible app, and he shared bits of his faith journey with us. For these things, I began to be truly grateful—and it made all the difference in our relationship.

  2. I noticed my own failures, leading to repentance.

  I’d been so critical of my husband, I’d forgotten about my weaknesses and failures. As I built him up in his faith, I saw the areas in which I, too, needed to be strengthened. This led to a whole new perspective in our marriage.

  3. My husband felt less pressure to live up to my expectations and more freedom to live according to God’s principles.

  I didn’t tell my husband I was going to put the “already arrived” theory into practice. However, he noticed something was different. He felt a lot less pressure from me and began wanting to take the lead spiritually. This was amazing to me, and I still thank God for this transformation.

  4. God filled in the gaps I’d been trying so hard to fill myself.

  All of my worries, that things would get worse instead of better went away, as I saw how God filled in every gap. The spiritual leadership of our family didn’t look as I thought it should look, but the Lord reminded me that despite our weaknesses, He would continue to be the strength and backbone of our family.

  5. My attitude completely changed for the better.

  It’s been ten years since I started treating my husband as if he’d already arrived, and these have been the best ten years of our marriage. I still get frustrated at times and start to worry about things, but those worries are quickly put to rest in knowing that God is the ultimate leader of our family. Mostly, I’m just thankful for a spouse who loves the Lord and love us as completely as he does.

  6. Our marriage grew by leaps and bounds.

  The first fifteen years of our marriage were good, but constantly plagued by my critical expectations. Looking back, I see how my sweet husband put up with lots of attitude and ingratitude. Praise the Lord I was able to set my skepticism aside and decided to treat my spouse as if he’d already arrived. Our marriage has grown tremendously over the past decade. Yes, we still have serious issues to work through. And yes, there are times when we have to do hard things and hold each other accountable, but it’s nothing like before.

  I encourage you today, if you are in a constant state of discontentment over what your spouse is or isn’t doing, try treating them as if they’ve already arrived. Commit your plans to the Lord and wait in eager expectation of what He will do. You might just be amazed at the transformation that takes place.

  Jennifer Waddleis a Kansas girl, married to a Colorado hunk, with a heart to encourage. She is the author of several books, including Prayer WORRIER: Turning Every Worry into Powerful Prayer, and is a contributor for LifeWay, Crosswalk, Abide, and Christians Care International. Jennifer’s online ministry is EncouragementMama.com where “Discouragement Doesn’t Win.” She resides with her family near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains—her favorite place on earth.

  Related Resource: 4 Truths About Marriage Every Couple Needs to RememberNo matter how long you’ve been married, reminding yourself of fundamental marriage truths is helpful. In this episode of the Team Us Podcast, Ted and Ashleigh share four truths about marriage every couple needs to remember. If you like what you hear, head over toApple or Spotify and subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY
Adam Smith and the Poor
Adam Smith did not seem to think that riches were requisite to happiness: “the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for” (The Theory of Moral Sentiments). But he did not mend beggary. The beggar here is not any beggar, but Diogenes the Cynic, who asked of Alexander the Great only to step back so as not to cast a shadow upon Diogenes as he reclined alongside the highway....
How Dispensationalism Got Left Behind
Whether we like it or not, Americans, in one way or another, have all been indelibly shaped by dispensationalism. Such is the subtext of Daniel Hummel’s provocative telling of the rise and fall of dispensationalism in America. In a little less than 350 pages, Hummel traces how a relatively insignificant Irishman from the Plymouth Brethren, John Nelson Darby, prompted the proliferation of dispensational theology, especially its eschatology, or theology of the end times, among our ecclesiastical, cultural, and political...
Lord Jonathan Sacks: The West’s Rabbi
In October 1798, the president of the United States wrote to officers of the Massachusetts militia, acknowledging a limitation of federal rule. “We have no government,” John Adams wrote, “armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, and revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.” The nation that Adams had helped to found would require the parts of the body...
Jesus and Class Warfare
Plenty of Marxists have turned to the New Testament and the origins of Christianity. Memorable examples include the works of F.D. Maurice and Zhu Weizhi’s Jesus the Proletarian. After criticizing how so many translations of the New Testament soften Jesus’ teachings regarding material possessions, greed, and wealth, Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart has gone so far to ask, “Are Christians supposed to be Communists?” In the Huffington Post, Dan Arel has even claimed that “Jesus was clearly a Marxist,...
Conversation Starters with … Anne Bradley
Anne Bradley is an Acton affiliate scholar, the vice president of academic affairs at The Fund for American Studies, and professor of economics at The Institute of World Politics. There’s much talk about mon good capitalism” these days, especially from the New Right. Is this long overdue, that a hyper-individualism be beaten back, or is it merely cover for increasing state control of the economy? Let me begin by saying that I hate “capitalism with adjectives” in general. This...
Up from the Liberal Founding
During the 20th century, scholars of the American founding generally believed that it was liberal. Specifically, they saw the founding as rooted in the political thought of 17th-century English philosopher John Locke. In addition, they saw Locke as a primarily secular thinker, one who sought to isolate the role of religion from political considerations except when necessary to prop up the various assumptions he made for natural rights. These included a divine creator responsible for a rational world for...
C.S. Lewis and the Apocalypse of Gender
From very nearly the beginning, Christianity has wrestled with the question of the body. Heretics from gnostics to docetists devalued physical reality and the body, while orthodox Christianity insisted that the physical world offers us true signs pointing to God. This quarrel persists today, and one form it takes is the general confusion among Christians and non-Christians alike about gender. Is gender an abstracted idea? Is it reducible to biological characteristics? Is it a set of behaviors determined by...
Creating an Economy of Inclusion
The poor have been the main subject of concern in the whole tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. The Catholic Church talks often about a “preferential option for the poor.” In recent years, many of the Church’s social teaching documents have been particularly focused on the needs of the poorest people in the world’s poorest countries. The first major analysis of this topic could be said to have been in the papal encyclical Populorum Progressio, published in 1967 by Pope...
Mistaken About Poverty
Perhaps it is because America is the land of liberty and opportunity that debates about poverty are especially intense in the United States. Americans and would-be Americans have long been told that if they work hard enough and persevere they can achieve their dreams. For many people, the mere existence of poverty—absolute or relative—raises doubts about that promise and the American experiment more generally. Is it true that America suffers more poverty than any other advanced democracy in the...
Spurgeon and the Poverty-Fighting Church
Religion & Liberty: Volume 33, Number 4 Spurgeon and the Poverty-Fighting Church by Christopher Parr • October 30, 2023 Portrait of Charles Spurgeon by Alexander Melville (1885) Charles Spurgeon was a young, zealous 15-year-old boy when he came to faith in Christ. A letter to his mother at the time captures the enthusiasm of his newfound Christian faith: “Oh, how I wish that I could do something for Christ.” God granted that wish, as Spurgeon would e “the prince of...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved