Improve Your Marriage by Improving Your Focus

By Mark Avery Reed

Dr. Mark Avery Reed’s book, Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus, shows that God’s intent is for our marriage to be happy and mutually enriching as we start emphasizing what we are receiving from our spouse and learn to increase simple, marriage-building behaviors. As we improve our ability to see ourselves, our spouse, and our marriage as the Lord does, we focus less on problems and express greater gratitude to each other. We become happier.

In Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus we learn that a healthy, happy marriage requires two people who have decent mental health. Hence, chapter 1 explains the key characteristics of mental and spiritual health. Sadly, this topic is seldom addressed at length in books on how to have a good marriage.

Dr. Reed offers many surprising and very helpful insights on such matters as appropriate self-disclosure, romance, intimacy, proper expectations, physical affection, sex, and the real nature of both agape and erotic love. The seldom-mentioned but important subject of how to hear from God for our marriage is also discussed with practical ideas which can be applied to any area of our life. Other topic areas with valuable input include how to listen effectively, dealing with conflict without emphasizing our problems, building hope and optimism for our marriage, strengthening commitment, and how to focus on what is positive.

Improve Your Marriage By Improving Your Focus also points out:

-Forty ways we can improve our self-image (since someone with a poor self-image will find ways to avoid deep intimacy lest they be rejected).
-Fifty-five Bible verses which indicate we should focus on what is positive.
-The biblical difference between justified and unjustified complaining and how unjustified griping greatly harms our marriage.

This book provides practical help by which most any two people with decent mental health can move their marriage from unsatisfying to at least satisfying or from good to even better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reed Publishing Co.
• Release date: Nov 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9780997367669

Mark Avery Reed

Mark Avery Reed is an ordained minister with a Master’s degree in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He also holds two Master’s degrees in Education and Marriage, Family, and Child Therapy plus two Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Political Science.He has a number of teaching credentials and experience as a chaplain, counselor, and developer of curriculum on spiritual warfare, biblical doctrine, and healthy family living. Mark seeks to enrich God’s people by examining aspects of biblical truth which are largely ignored today.

Book preview

AAT = An American Translation

AB = Amplified Bible

ASB = Annotated Study Bible

BAGD = Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker Greek-English Lexicon, 2nd edition

BBE = Bible in Basic English (The Basic Bible)

BDAG = Bauer, Danker Greek-English Lexicon, 3rd edition

BEPC = Baker Encyclopedia Of Psychology & Counseling

CCB = Christian Community Bible

CEB = Common English Bible

CEV = Contemporary English Version

CJB = Complete Jewish Bible

CSBSB = Christian Standard Bible Study Bible

CW = Clear Word

CWSD = Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament

DPCC = Dictionary Of Pastoral Care And Counseling

EBC = Expositor’s Bible Commentary

EDBW = Expository Dictionary Of Bible Words

ESV = English Standard Version

GW = God’s Word

HCSB = Holman Christian Standard Bible

IDB = The Interpreter’s Dictionary Of The Bible

ISBE = International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

ISV = International Standard Version

IVPBBC: NT = IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament

IVPBBC: OT = IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament

JB = Jerusalem Bible

JNTC = Jewish New Testament Commentary

KJV = King James Version

KNT = Kingdom New Testament

LAB = Life Application Bible (see under LB in bibliography)

LB = Living Bible

LXX = The Septuagint

NASB = New American Standard Bible

NBV = New Berkeley Version

NCV = New Century Version

NEB = New English Bible

NET = NET Bible

NIB = New Interpreter’s Bible

NIBC = New International Bible Commentary

NIDNTT = New International Dictionary Of New Testament Theology

NIDNTTE = New International Dictionary Of New Testament Theology And Exegesis

NIDOTTE = New International Dictionary Of Old Testament Theology And Exegesis

NIV = New International Version

NIVPO&SB = NIV Preacher’s Outline & Sermon Bible

NJB = New Jerusalem Bible

NKJV = New King James Version

NLT = New Living Translation (first edition)

NLV = New Life Version

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version

PT = Passion Translation

REB = Revised English Bible

RSV = Revised Standard Version

SFLB = Spirit Filled Life Bible

TCNT = Twentieth Century New Testament

TDNT (abridged) = Theological Dictionary Of The New Testament (abridged in one volume)

TDNT = Theological Dictionary Of The New Testament

TEV = Today’s English Version

TLNT = Theological Lexicon Of The New Testament

TNIV = Today’s New International Version

TNT = Translator’s New Testament

VCED = Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary

WPNT = Word Pictures in the New Testament

WSNT = Word Studies in the New Testament

YLT = Young’s Literal Translation

ZPEB = Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia Of The Bible

Introduction

If we would be happy in our marriage, many of us must improve our focus. When the Israelites had a chance to enter the Promised Land, with the Lord’s assistance, they looked at the problems – namely, the giants in the land. They could have remembered how God had been faithful to help them leave Egypt. This would have been accurately focusing on what was positive. Instead, they chose to fixate on the size of their opponents. While they were correct about the giant’s size, their emphasis needed to be elsewhere. This cost that generation their opportunity to enjoy the provision the Lord had for them. The same thing happens in so very many marriages.

We improve our focus in two fundamental ways. First, we change what we are looking at. The apostle Peter walked on water as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, who had asked Peter to approach him by walking on the stormy sea. However, when Peter switched his gaze from Jesus to the huge waves, he became afraid and began to sink. So often this is precisely what we do in our marriage – and it has the same disastrous effect. We stare at our spouse’s flaws instead of their strengths; what our marriage is costing us rather than on how it benefits us; and how we can escape our marital pain, not how we can use it for God’s glory and our good. When we have this negative orientation toward our lover, we may concentrate on correcting their ‘faults’ instead of being gracious and respecting their differing opinions. It is vital that we learn to stress the right things in our marriage.

The other way we improve our focus is to more clearly see what we are observing. The Bible says our perceptions about reality are similar to the preciseness we would have in looking into a darkened mirror. We may correctly get the general idea but miss some important details. It can be compared to our having eye glasses which only allow for very hazy vision and poor reading because we desperately need a new prescription for our lenses. We may be looking at the right thing but simply cannot see it as distinctly as is needed.

For example, we might accurately grasp that we don’t feel safe with our spouse but mistakenly attribute this to them not being trustworthy instead of realizing that we have a problem trusting others. Another instance could be that we know we don’t touch our partner much but think that is okay since they gave up asking for touch. Perhaps we recognize that we prioritize being understood over understanding our mate, yet we are sure this is best because we believe our view on the issue is correct. Lastly, we could acknowledge that we have a poor self-image but don’t see how that hinders the emotional or physical intimacy we experience in our marriage. Our marital eyesight is so poor that we fail to discern key issues.

As was true with the Israelites, fear can divert our attention from where it needs to be. It is so much easier to blame than to risk doing our part. Maybe we wonder why God would have us be married to someone with giant-like problems. We need to stop emphasizing what is negative about them. This book addresses many of the ways we ought to improve our focus so we can enter our marriage’s Promised Land.

Chapter 1 – What Does Mental/Spiritual Health Look Like?

It should be obvious that a healthy marriage requires two essentially healthy individuals. A person married to an individual who is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic will be unlikely to do anything which secures their trust. Yet, without trust a flourishing relationship isn’t going to exist. None of us are at the perfect end of the mental/spiritual health continuum, but significant personal issues will probably hinder the formation of a healthy marriage.

Some may object that few people have notable personal issues which are likely to prevent marital health and happiness. Yet, consider just two kinds of problems: addictions and sexual problems. Alcoholism and addiction to various other drugs can have a devastating impact on our marriage – and so very many people are affected by these.

In addition, numerous studies have shown that dissatisfaction with our sex life strongly correlates to marital unhappiness. It has been estimated that at least 38% of all women and 16% of all men in the United States were the victims of childhood sexual abuse.¹ (And a lot more have been sexually traumatized through things like rape and attempted rape in adulthood). Many, perhaps most, of them have not been healed and carry issues regarding sex into their marriage. This greatly increases the chance of marital unhappiness. And there are so many other personal issues which may well affect marriage such as disorders of depression, anxiety, trauma, and personality.

I believe we are unitary beings who cannot compartmentalize our problems. Spiritual health will affect mental health just as poor mental health will negatively impact spiritual health. Hence, to know what mental well-being looks like, we should look at the only example of perfect spiritual health – the Lord Jesus Christ. His person and teaching best inform us of this.

God-Centered Living

If we would enjoy the kind of spiritual/mental health Jesus did, we, too, must live every moment to please God, who is love itself and knows what is best. Jesus directs us to trust Him if we would be connected to God the Father, the source of grace and health. Though God’s common grace can lead to a measure of mental well-being, optimal health can only take place when we have a relationship with God the Father through Christ. Our development is enhanced as we more fully surrender to the Lord who calls us to live in faithful devotion to Him. The center of our lives is our intimacy with Him – not rules, rituals, or our own will. We increasingly focus on and enjoy His Presence in our lives and let go of everything to which we selfishly cling. Possessions, status, and growth-hindering anxiety over such things no longer dominate our lives.

God-centered living also means loving Him by loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. Thus, we seek the Lord’s best for ourselves and others. We have strongly developed values which accurately discern God’s view of right, wrong, and mere matters of opinion in concrete situations. Likewise, we have embraced the Lord’s priorities for life. These include such things as putting Him first, prioritizing people over things, and accepting that our spouse is normally to be the dearest neighbor for whom we are to display love.

Since Jesus lived in a perfectly God-centered way, we try to live as Jesus did. In love, we always turn our eyes upon the Father so we will better understand both Him and ourselves and be able to more intimately connect with Him. To this end, we also cultivate a renewed mind so we will value and live by God’s grace in each moment. And though we mostly concentrate on the present, we do glance at the informative past and make plans, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, for the future.

We are not bored, unnecessarily defensive, or indifferent to others but display life-giving behavior. The Holy Spirit helps us oppose harmful habits, reject sinful cravings, and develop the abilities and gifts God has given us as we seek greater closeness to Him. Having an orientation toward growth, we habitually strive to become better adjusted and more whole. Strengthened by grace, we increasingly progress in that often-mysterious ability to trust the Lord and be guided by His Spirit. Since insights about higher stages of Christian health and development come from the mystics, we do all we can to learn from them and, thus, are more likely to have our own mystical experiences.² While we do not pursue these experiences per se, our desire to be lovingly united to the Lord and to be directed by Him in all things may lead to experiences which are mysterious and mystical. It involves far more than acquiring knowledge of the Bible and serving in a local church. Rather, it is deep intimacy with the One who, as Love, Light, and Laughter, expresses Himself, like the wind, in ways that are often unpredictable, perplexing, and downright peculiar.

Learning God’s Truth

Greater mental and spiritual health includes having an accurate view of others, the world, and ourselves.³ Thus, spiritual maturity enables us to correctly perceive our strengths, shortcomings, desires, fears, emotions, and wounds. When we have a strong character and good mental health, we are more likely to display enhanced wisdom, sound judgment, openness, curiosity, creativity, and love of learning used for healthy ends.⁴ Being open, for example, allows us to be receptive to new experiences and interpretations of those experiences which are consistent with our values.

A consequence of being spiritually healthy is that we assess our values, beliefs, feelings, and experiences by biblical truth. We seek to cultivate our spiritual understanding by carefully studying the Bible so we are not only able to learn both its basic and deeper truths but are also capable of skillfully teaching them to others. After all, a poor understanding of advanced Christian teaching is a sign of spiritual immaturity. According to Hebrews 5:13-14, this is because maturity in theological understanding and ethical maturity go together. The former doesn’t automatically lead to the latter, but the ability to make precise God-approved ethical evaluations is less likely without a good understanding of Scripture.

Discerning And Doing God’s Will

Being spiritually healthy, we have continuously trained ourselves to apply biblical truth to our daily decisions. We recognize and accept the frequently paradoxical nature of biblical truth and are comfortable making our best decision despite uncertainties and ambiguities. Habitually and to a notable degree, we obediently live out the truth, as we understand, because we love the Lord. The result is reverence for God, spiritual enthusiasm, and humility.⁵ And the result of humility is surrender, dependence on the Lord, living by grace through faith, and compassionate patience toward others. These are the very kind of qualities which allow us to deeply love the Lord and others.

Those who are spiritually mature don’t need to rely on Bible scholars or authority figures to tell them what God’s will is in a particular situation. We know that the Lord will guide us because He delights in our progress toward greater spiritual health and maturity. This guidance occurs as His Spirit speaks to us through Scripture and a number of other means as well. Since we know that the Spirit speaks God’s directive word to us in our specific life situations, we examine every avenue of revelation so we can discern what the Holy Spirit is saying to us each day. He moves us toward better spiritual health as we surrender to His moment-by-moment influence in our lives. This was how Jesus lived. Those who would be healthier must live this way too.

Every one of the Lord’s sheep hear His voice to some extent. When we are more mature, though, we pay greater attention to every way He seeks to communicate with us. We listen more and talk less. Our work also becomes increasingly effective to advance the Lord’s agenda, rather than our own, because each of our Spirit-directed activities is authorized by God. He directs us in the particulars of our life and we follow Him rather than asking Him to bless our projects.⁶ As was true with Jesus, ministry effectiveness probably will focus on the quality development of fewer people over the superficial development of far more.

Mature Responses In Difficulties

Our difficulties can facilitate spiritual growth and movement toward improved well-being when we respond to them in faith. In order to deal with our troubles in a healthy way, we need to display the courage, honesty, and zeal which enable us to persevere.⁷ Even when it seems that the Lord is not answering our prayers, we trust Him, persevere and, thus, mature.⁸ We act in a God-pleasing way during our suffering and accept what we cannot change. As those who are called to go beyond what would seem to be our breaking point, we are joyful because we believe that our Good Shepherd is with us and for us. In addition, we candidly talk to the Lord about our situations and listen to Him about them. Even in the face of disaster we can enthusiastically praise the Lord who loves us and look for opportunities He provides in the midst of our troubles.

The healthier we are, the better we can tolerate frustration. Our only ambition is to have the Lord approve of what we are doing because we have surrendered our own interests in order to do His will for us.⁹ This includes overcoming temptation and accepting both our wounds and apparent defeats since the Lord can cause everything to work for our well-being. No hurt needs to be seen as being meaningless. There is a larger plan. Hence, instead of seeking an easy life, we are eager to face necessary spiritual challenges so we can enjoy greater health and maturity.

Deep Self-Disclosure

Progress toward spiritual health entails a strengthening of our trust in the Lord and a corresponding decrease in our anxiety. Consequently, the healthier we are the less we will use ego defense mechanisms which are intended to help us deal with anxiety.¹⁰ To see this, let’s look at several of these unconscious mechanisms which keep the ego guarded. Rationalization offers reasons for not doing what is right and for doing what is wrong; repression provides a loss of conscious memory for key information about ourselves; and denial entails a rejection of some truth about ourselves told to us by others – such as our responding to their input about our drinking when we say, ‘You are wrong. I don’t have a problem with alcohol.’¹¹ All of these clearly move us away from having a more accurate view of ourselves and, thus, hinder our ability to accurately share about ourselves to others. Ego defense mechanisms can be viewed as ways we deceive ourselves.¹²

Since we are less guarded with trustworthy others when we are healthier, we become more capable of deep self-disclosure. With heightened awareness of such things as our current emotions, we are able to disclose them to others when we deem it appropriate to do so. We speak the truth in a loving way and seek, whenever possible, to avoid blaming the other person. Hence, we do our best to avoid communication which would hurt another in favor of saying things which express how much we care. This involves the kind of accurate and vulnerable sharing of feelings which will facilitate emotional intimacy. The presence of conflicting emotions in ourselves and others is both acknowledged and accepted.¹³ Communication is positive, supportive, and correctly reflects our beliefs, attitudes, motives, and feelings.¹⁴

Capacity For Rich Intimacy

The healthier we are, the more we seek rich, loving intimacy with the Lord and our fellow human beings. An enlarged capacity for intimacy with the Lord is seen in a richer prayer life. After all, spiritual maturity and maturity in prayer are inseparable. The latter requires a radical orientation of our will toward the Lord, a simpler lifestyle, and the discipline to listen to Him.¹⁵ This is also true of spiritual growth. Prayer becomes our way of life rather than a segment of it.¹⁶

One result of an improved prayer life is an increased sense of God’s Presence throughout each day. We must remember that the Lord is intimate with and guides those who are honest, straightforward, and virtuous.¹⁷ As we grow healthier, our ability to be intimate with Him expands.

Intimacy with others entails our being vulnerable enough to take risks in being self-disclosive as God directs us. Such connection helps us to better enjoy an even more intimate relationship with our Lord. We readily forgive people for perceived failures toward us and demonstrate this through acts of compassion, humility, and flexibility. Knowing that intimacy requires mutual self-disclosure, we do our best to be trustworthy so