Devotionals by FamilyLife

Fire It Up!
By Lisa Lakey

Have you ever made your own pottery? (Yep, Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze just popped into my head.)

Simply forming the clay while the wheel turns round and round isn’t enough to make it into something of value. You have to throw your design into the kiln. It’s the most important part of the entire process. That heat takes your messy, muddy creation and turns it into a sturdy work of art.

Much like my less-than-beautiful attempts at pottery, marriages are refined by fire, too.

In the beginning, we’re just creating our lives together, trying to see how everything fits to get the outcome we want. We argue over who does what around the house, time spent with friends, and a lot of little things that come with learning to combine two lives into one.

It isn’t until after this “honeymoon” phase that married life heats up for real.

Like miscarriages and infertility kind of real. Like bankruptcies and lost jobs kind of real. Even affairs, emotional distance, and I-don’t-want-to-be-married-to-you kind of real.

This stuff, it burns.

But if we hold on tight, these “fires” can refine us, our spouses, and our marriage. The heat will draw us closer not just to each other, but to Christ. And through Him, we won’t just survive the fire, we’ll come out stronger than before.

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The Good Stuff: We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

Action Points: What “fire” are you going through right now? Ask God for the strength to endure it. What steps can you take with your spouse to come out stronger on the other side?

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