Summary: We’re so glad for your continued listening of our marriage podcast, “Marriage to the Max”, hosted by Brett & Kellie Hurst of Home Encouragement. And we greatly appreciate your ongoing feedback and comments! We have entitled this week’s conversation, “A Marriage of Grace”. When we are in ongoing dialogue with struggling couples, or even couples in critical crisis, we very frequently hear the desire from so many of these couples to have more peace in their relationship. These spouses want to be free of the escalation of tension in their everyday experience. We hear these couples desperately crying out for more grace in their marriage. Fortunately, we believe that also God wants married couples to enjoy grace within marriage and that He can tremendously assist in that process. The word “grace” is a beautiful word with many historical definitions. Our favorite definition of grace is “unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification”. In other words, grace is a holy word, a holy concept. Without divine assistance with God, none of us could even know Him, let alone enjoy the blessings that He offers us. Receiving God’s blessings of love is truly the most important definition of grace. However, grace can also be defined as having a charming or attractive trait or characteristic. Going even further, grace could also be defined as having “a disposition toward an act of kindness or courtesy.” In marriage, dispositions toward acts of kindness can go a long way! But how does one get a disposition or attitude toward kindness? We believe one of the greatest roadblocks to the way of marital health and strength is our own selfishness. Right behind that reality would be our own blindness regarding that selfishness. It’s truly remarkable how we can forget how strong our wills can be. When we are reading Scripture, it doesn’t take long for us to be reminded of how quickly we can drift each day toward rationalizing our own designs, our own ways of behaving or looking at life. This wayward “drift” causes us to miss out the fullness of life that God intended and desires for us to experience….in all of our relationships. We do know that a better plan is available to couples, if they’re both willing. We hope that today’s episode will encourage each of us to look to the Lord, our Creator, for our ultimate satisfaction. This will allow us to extend grace, understanding and forgiveness to our spouses when they don’t live up to our own expectations or standards. Thank you for listening so far. We greatly appreciate it. Feel free to contact us anytime at thehursts@homeencouragement.org if we can be of assistance to your family in any way. And we are also grateful to Grant Peterson of South Hill Communications as well as our engineer Zach Alkire for their invaluable assistance in getting this podcast to you. Opening and closing theme songs by Loopsound. Episode 12 - A Marriage of Grace by Brett & Kellie Hurst
