I remember sitting across from an older couple at church one Sunday after service. They were holding hands, gently, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The wife had laugh lines that crinkled up when her husband leaned over and said something only she could hear. Whatever it was, she chuckled, and he smiled like it was the first time he’d ever made her laugh.
They’d been married 47 years.
I asked them, “What’s your secret?”
The husband said, “Oh, it’s nothing big. Just saying yes to each other in the small things. Over and over.”
That’s when it hit me. Marriage isn’t built on grand gestures or one-time declarations of love. It’s built on countless little choices—daily, sometimes hourly—rooted in humility, patience, and grace. And that’s exactly what Scripture points us toward.
Love That Looks Like Jesus
When Paul writes in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,” he isn’t offering a romantic metaphor. He’s pointing us to a sacrificial, servant-hearted kind of love. A love that kneels to wash feet. A love that speaks truth, but never with the intention to wound. A love that holds fast even when the feelings fade or life gets hard.
Marriage, at its core, is a daily decision to love like Jesus.
That means showing up even when you’re tired. It means choosing to believe the best in each other. It means forgiveness, sometimes over the same issue for the tenth time. And it means learning how to say, “I’m sorry,” and mean it.
Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s a practice. A muscle you stretch and strengthen every time you hold your tongue or go out of your way to serve your spouse. It’s the way you look at them when they’re at their worst and still say, “You’re mine. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Communication: Speaking Life
One of the most common struggles I hear from couples is communication. It’s not that they don’t talk. It’s how they talk.
Proverbs 18:21 tells us, “The tongue has the power of life and death.” That’s not just poetic, it’s a spiritual truth. Your words can either build up or tear down the person you’ve committed your life to.
So, what does life-giving communication look like?
It looks like:
- Saying “thank you” for the things they think go unnoticed.
- Choosing to listen, not to fix or win, but to understand.
- Praying together. Out loud. Even when it feels awkward.
- Naming the good you see in them, especially when they don’t see it in themselves.
It also means learning to fight fair. That’s right, conflict isn’t the enemy. Avoiding it or exploding during it is. The Bible says in James 1:19, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” What if you paused in a moment of frustration and asked, “What’s really going on here?” Often, there’s hurt underneath the anger. When you get curious about your spouse instead of critical, healing has a way in.
Grace in the Messy Middle
No marriage is immune to hard seasons. Kids come. Jobs change. Health scares arise. There are moments you’ll feel disconnected or disappointed. But here’s the good news: God isn’t shocked by your struggles, and He isn’t finished with your story.
Marriage is messy. But grace is more remarkable.
Romans 5:8 says, “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” If God chose to love us in the middle of our mess, we can choose to love our spouse when they’re hard to love too. Grace doesn’t mean excusing sin or avoiding boundaries. It means refusing to give up on each other, even when the road is long.
Ask any couple who’s made it through the storms, and they’ll tell you: commitment isn’t about feeling in love all the time. It’s about trusting God to carry you both when you’re too tired to carry each other.
Small Acts, Big Impact
So, what does all of this look like in everyday life? It looks like:
- Praying for your spouse while doing the dishes.
- Holding hands on the way to the grocery store.
- Choosing not to bring up that old argument again.
- Leaving a note in their lunchbox or on their dashboard.
- Laughing together, even if it’s just about how bad you are at dancing.
These aren’t grand gestures. But they are holy ones.
They’re bricks in the house you’re building together, one act of love at a time.
Closing Thoughts
Marriage is sacred not because it’s easy, but because it mirrors the very heart of God, a covenant-keeping God who loves without end. And when you let that kind of love be your foundation, your marriage becomes more than a partnership. It becomes a ministry.
So today, start small. Choose kindness. Speak gently. Show up, even if yesterday was hard. And invite God into the middle of it all—not just on your wedding day, but every day after.
Because the strongest marriages aren’t perfect, they’re just filled with two people who keep saying yes to love, to grace, and to each other.
