Faithbase

Finding joy day four. The beans or the background. Today's verse was written by Paul to believers in Ephesus. Our verse comes from a portion of the letter where Paul is giving instruction on Christian households, specifically looking at the marriage relationship. The verse Ephesians chapter 5 verse 21. Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. The steam. What does this mean to me and how can I apply it to my life today? While marriage is certainly filled with highs and lows, we all really want to feel fulfilled and joyful about our relationship with our spouse. Regardless of the state of your marriage currently, we all have areas we could work on. So briefly today, I'm actually working on an entire series for marriage later, but for today I'm gonna ask a few questions to help us figure out how to add just a little more joy to our days through these relationships. In order for a marriage to function at its best, both partners need to receive what it is they need or want out of the relationship, which means you first need to understand yourself and what your needs and desires are before you can communicate them to your spouse. So what is something that you need out of your relationship right now? The five love languages is a great resource to help you get started, but here are a few questions. Do you need more time together? More attention or physical touch? More encouragement? More time to really talk? More help with daily chores or even more little gifts or reminders of how they feel about you? And remember, different seasons of life cause our needs and desires to change. What you need from your spouse during the days of raising babies is probably gonna look quite different from what you'll need in the retirement days. Also, it might be a good idea to go ahead and tell your spouse that you'd like to have this conversation about needs. This way they won't feel attacked and they'll be able to prepare a list of their own needs and wants to share with you in return. Once both of you are ready, have the conversation where you explain to one another what your needs and wants are. Try to find as calm of a time as you can, meaning not in the heat of an argument, to talk this through together.