Are you in a marriage that is so old and outdated that you feel there’s no helping this dinosaur? Have you decided that it is what it is, and you might as well get used to it the way it is? Or have you simply decided to stay because of the children and provisional securities?
If you answered, ‘Yes,’ to any of these three questions, I have an assignment for you.
I am always constantly searching within for ways to make my marriage, and the couples who attend my marriage life classes, better, and one day God dropped in my heart the perfect tool.
I call it The Intentional Box.
Here’s a list of what you will need:
Two cute boxes
Twenty index cards
Paper clips
A marker or pen
Two willing people, &
A desire to change things.
Here are the instructions:
Each one of you gets ten index cards to write down something your spouse could do to make your day better, or even to create the perfect moment.
Examples: Sporadic phone calls all day just to say, “I Love You.”
A ten-second kiss. A back rub. Two sex sessions. Etc.
Hey, get as up close and personal as you like.
After you both have written ten things you’d like to happen, fold the cards twice and then put a paper clip on them.
Now, place your things in your box.
Every day beginning on Monday, you each will pull one card from your spouse’s box.
Whatever that card says is exactly what you have to do.
That’s why it’s called The Intentional Box.
You have deliberately given your spouse ten options to make their day better.
See, sometimes we lose our way in marriage. Not because we no longer are in love (as the world calls it), but because it’s gotten boring, and the clutter of life has been piled on top of love. Children, bills, responsibilities, careers, church, and even egos, have all replaced the spontaneous gestures, long talks on the phone, walking in the park, and the intentional aspirations to ignite happiness. And it takes effort to bring all of the latter things back into the premises of the relationship.
Now someone has quickly decided, I don’t have time for this, and you just may not. But I suggest that you make time because while you are maxing out, someone else is awaiting the opportunity to creep in.
That’s why the Bible is specific when it warns you not to deprive one another except with consent and for fasting and prayer and then come together again so that Satan won’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control (1 Corinthians 7:5).
The hard part isn’t finding ways to make your marriage better.
The hard part is deciding in your mind that you want things in your marriage to be better.
And if you ever get your mind to come into agreement with the purpose, promises, and provisional blessings that are afforded through marriage, you’ll do whatever you can find within your reach to add icing to the cake.
Go be intentional and make what you have last forever.
By Danyelle Scroggins
Author & Senior Pastor of New Vessels Ministries
Danyelle Scroggins is the Senior Pastor of New Vessels Ministries North in Shreveport, Louisiana. She is an author of both Christian fiction and non-fiction books. Danyelle studied Theology at Louisiana Baptist University, has a Psychology Degree from the University of Phoenix, an Interdisciplinary Degree in Psychology/Biblical Studies and a Master’s in Religious Education, both from Liberty University. She owns Divinely Sown Publishing LLC and is a Chaplain at Ochsner LSU Health Center, Louisiana’s trauma one health center.
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