Faith: "What Is Filling Your Marriage"
"When your marriage is full of what honors God, there's not much room for what dishonors Him." (life.church/lovestories)
Sally came into my office last week, she looked exhausted. "We had another huge fight," she said. "I don't know how we keep ending up here. We're both trying, but we keep falling into the same patterns."
I get it. Marriage can feel like you're constantly playing defense—fighting against criticism, resentment, selfishness, and disconnection. We focus so much energy on what we're doing wrong that we forget to ask: What if we focused on doing more things right?
Here's what struck me about that quote: It's not about perfection. It's about displacement.
Think about it like this—when you fill a glass with clean water, there's literally no room for the muddy stuff. The good crowds out the bad, not through force, but through simple physics. What if marriage worked the same way?
Notice what this approach doesn't promise. It doesn't say you'll never have conflict. It doesn't guarantee you'll never hurt each other or feel disconnected. Instead, it suggests something more practical: when your relationship is intentionally filled with God-honoring habits, the destructive patterns have less space to take root.
But here's what I'm learning about this principle in real marriages today: It requires us to shift from defense to offense. Instead of just trying to stop being critical, we start actively speaking words of affirmation. Instead of just avoiding selfishness, we look for ways to serve. Instead of just not withdrawing, we intentionally pursue connection.
The peace this creates isn't the absence of problems—it's the presence of something stronger than your problems. When couples consistently choose forgiveness over scorekeeping, gratitude over complaint, and humility over pride, those patterns become the dominant force in the relationship.
This changes everything about how I think about marriage challenges now. Every moment of tension, every recurring argument, every season of distance—they're all operating in a relationship that can be intentionally filled with God's design for love.
I'm not talking about toxic positivity or pretending everything is fine. The struggles are real. The hurt is valid. The patterns are stubborn. But they're not ultimate.
God doesn't ask us to ignore the dysfunction. He asks us to remember that dysfunction doesn't get the final word. His design does.
Sally needed to hear this. We all do. Marriage feels hard because it is hard. But difficulty isn't our master. Past patterns don't get to dictate our future. The One who designed marriage has already given us everything we need to honor Him in it.
What if we started there?
Next Steps:
Name your current pattern: What keeps showing up in your marriage? What cycle are you tired of repeating? Write it down.
Practice "Yes, and...": Yes, this struggle is real, AND God has given us tools to honor Him here. Don't minimize the problem, but don't maximize it beyond God's provision.
Choose one God-honoring practice: Maybe it's daily gratitude, weekly prayer together, or replacing criticism with curiosity. Start small, start today.
What pattern in your marriage needs to be crowded out by something better? How has God shown you His design for love in the middle of real struggles? Share your thoughts with us.