Show notes
Thankfulness in marriage is necessary and unthankfulness is destructive. In the season of thanksgiving, the meaning of thankfulness can easily be lost. In this episode, we give some tips on how to have a biblical mind on thankfulness and how to walk in it Thankfulness in marriage is necessary and unthankfulness is destructive. In the season of thanksgiving, the meaning of thankfulness can easily be lost. In this episode, we give some tips on how to have a biblical mind on thankfulness and how to walk in it every day. We all need to be reminded often to fill our hearts with thankfulness. --Take our 31-day marriage prayer challenge today and join the 1000's of couples who have done it. https://shop.marriageaftergod.com/products/thirty-one-prayers-bundle --FOR MORE MARRIAGE ENCOURAGEMENThttps://marriageaftergod.comhttps://instagram.com/marriageaftergod SHOP MARRIAGE RESOURCEShttps://shop.marriageaftergod.com FOR WIVEShttps://unveiledwife.comhttps://facebook.com/unveiledwife FOR HUSBANDShttps://husbandrevolution.comhttps://facebook.com/HusbandRevolution READ:Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God. Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. And today, we're gonna talk about how a heart of thankfulness is necessary for a marriage after God. So today, we're gonna talk about thankfulness in marriage, and we may even hit on why unthankfulness is, you know, damaging to marriage. But we're excited about this episode, especially 'cause Thanksgiving's right around the corner, and I think that, you know, thankfulness is usually on people's mind. If not, it's written somewhere on a napkin or some sort of decor for Thanksgiving, so. Yeah, but one of the reasons we wanna bring up this topic is especially with a corporate holiday, you know, federal holiday being Thanksgiving, sometimes it might lose its meaning. We might think, oh, of course, yeah, I should be thankful, I should be thankful, but we forget actually the spiritual impact that thankfulness has on our lives and actually the command that we have from the Lord to be thankful. Yeah. And so we just wanna talk about what thankfulness does in a marriage after God, and how it could benefit our ministry. And why it's important to do it all year 'round, right? Yeah, not just one day a year when the food's amazing. So that's what we wanna talk about today, is thankfulness, and we're gonna give some tips on the end, just how to have a mind and heart surrounded with thankfulness, and the Bible's really clear on how thankfulness should be a part of our lives. It shouldn't be just something that comes and goes, and it shouldn't just be based on the circumstances, which we'll see, but thankfulness should be an integral part of the Christian's life. It should be something deep inside of us. And so I think it'll be fun to discuss this. I have some questions for us to answer candidly about thankfulness in our own lives, because we're never unthankful. Never. Yeah, our marriage is only ever full of thankfulness. We're always walking in the spirit, so like. Yeah, perfectly. That flesh never gets to us. I mean, we're just. No, of course we're being facetious. We're a perfect couple, really. No, we have to be reminded often to be thankful, to have hearts filled with thankfulness, and the fruit that comes from that is good, and the fruit that comes from unthankfulness is not so good. Yeah. It's actually very destructive. Yeah. So, we're gonna dig in. We have some scripture to talk about, and some questions to answer, and then some tips at the end, and I think it's gonna be really good, so I hope you enjoy it. Okay, so we kind of broke this down into two sections, and so the first one is it's necessary for a strong marriage relationship. So thankfulness is necessary in order to have a strong marriage. And the first question that we wanted to kind of ask each other is, how do you think that thankfulness might play a huge role in strengthening our relationship? Yeah, I was thinking about this based off of the scripture that we're gonna talk about later, but thankfulness, I feel like it keeps us in a positive place, it keeps us moving forward. You know, I think about the times that we're not thankful. Mmhmm. And what our relationship is like. If you go back to like, in the beginning of our marriage, I don't know if I was necessary thankful for you, right? And so, I would neglect you. I would be frustrated with you. I would be bitter at our relationship and the things that weren't going my way, 'cause I had these expectations, and since those expectations weren't being fulfilled, I wasn't thankful. It was like I got a bad gift, and I was like, oh, thanks for this, God. I remember all the years at Christmas, and I would, you know, as a little child, be expecting one thing. Like that bike. You should tell that story. Yeah, I know. So, one Christmas, I just wanted a bike. The only thing I wanted was a bike. I dropped hints everywhere. Disclaimer, my parents are awesome, right? So, I wanted a bike. And I remember getting to my grandma's house. We were all there, everyone was there, and my grandma just starts dropping hints, 'cause she knows exactly what I'm getting. She's like, oh, I know what you're getting for Christmas. Oh, what is it? And she's like, here's your first hint. It's red. And I said, red? I'm thinking, I'm like, oh, a red bike, yeah. And then she got me with the second hint. She's like, the second hint is it starts with a B. Oh, no. And I'm like, what? I'm like, my parents actually got me the bike I wanted! And then I get the present, and it's like this big. It's like, it's a small box. Oh, no. And I'm like, how does a, maybe it's like a helmet. Maybe it's the helmet for the bike, and they're gonna trick me. Stay hopeful here. And I open it up, and it's a red pair of boots. Oh, red boots. Cowboy boots, yeah. That's awesome, though. Yeah, that's the kind of thankfulness I'm talking about, that we had in our marriage, like, yeah, thanks, God, but it was more like a, I wasn't actually thankful. Now, I did wear those boots all the time. But you didn't get the bike that you wanted. But I didn't get the bike I wanted, and I feel like that's what, you know, thankfulness is being thankful for what you have. So I could have been thankful for you, and I would have seen you with eyes of thankfulness. Mmhmm. Whether or not I think you were what I should have gotten, or the things that we were going through were something great or terrible, I could have been thankful, and that probably would have changed a lot of things in the way I responded to you, in the way I walked with you. I can see that. Instead of drifting away from you, because it was like, I'm gonna put you in the closet, like those boots. He didn't ever put me in the closet. I didn't put her in the closet. But that's the spiritual, you know. Isolation. Isolating myself. Being apart from one another, yeah. But like, how have you seen thankfulness play a huge role in strengthening our relationship? Well, on the positive side, 'cause I also, in the beginning of our marriage, I wouldn't say that I was thankful for the gift of marriage. I was a little bit jolted in like, not receiving the thing that I wanted. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. Yeah, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be. Yeah, and the first few years were really rough, but I could see how, when we started to walk out with hearts of thankfulness, how it really affirmed our marriage. And so I just kinda wanna highlight the positive here, that it changed us, and it gave us eyes to see where, even in the really, really small stuff, how we can be grateful for what we have and who we're with. I mean, I can look at our relationship now, and I'm so grateful for being with you. I can even be thankful for the things that we went through in the past, because I know that God used it for good, and I don't know, I just think that it's important to have a heart of thankfulness for each other, even in the hard times. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that later as well when we get to the tips, but you're really good at reminding me to be thankful. Now I am, I didn't used to be. In the hard times, yeah. And I was actually, while you were talking, I was thinking about all those times in Africa when we were missionaries, and we would go to a family's home, and when I say a home, it was like either a hut or just a smaller building, not what we would recognize here, and they would present us with the most, in our minds, wasn't something amazing, food, but in their minds, it was the best they had, and I just remember recognizing, 'cause a lot of the missionaries that we were with, they were like, no, you're gonna honor them. You're gonna eat what they give you, and that's hard for us. And you eat all of it, 'cause if you leave some, then you're not using the value of what they gave. Yeah, you're not appreciating that. You're not showing them that you're thankful. And I'm just thinking about the relationship between the gift-giver, the person giving me their food, in their world was the best that they had, and I'm thinking, like, oh, this is not as good as I, you know, my selfishness. Not being thankful is looking at the relationship in a way that like, oh, you didn't give me enough, you didn't give me what I want, and therefore, I'm not gonna be in that kind of connection with you and that kind of fellowship with you, right? Yeah. And I'm actually like, you know, harming the relationship with that person, because I'm not satisfied with what they've given me. Now, on the other hand, let's say I'm hungry, and I have no food, and I crawl into their home, and they feed me, right? Whatever they give me, I'm thankful. The Bible tells us that, you know, when you're hungry, even bitter things taste sweet, right? So the mentality, the heart is different toward that person. I'm like, man, thank you. You saved my life. You saved my life. It's the same food, different perspective. Yeah. So when you think about it from that perspective, you know, of a perspective shift, it really comes from a place of pride. You know, I'm unthankful because I deserve something, I'm owed something. What you have given me isn't worthy of me, right? It's a very selfish way to look at it. Super selfish. And so, on the other hand, if I'm thankful, my perspective is like, what I have is better than what I deserve, is more than what I'm owed, is beyond what I could have asked for. It's exactly where God wants us to be. It's pride versus humbleness, humility. So that's why I think it strengthens our relationship when we are thankful for each other, during the circumstances we're going through with each other, for the things that God's given our marriage. How can or has unthankfulness hurt our witness and ministry as a couple? Well, some of the stuff I was just talking about, of the pride. Mmhmm. I feel like, no, I don't feel like. I know people can recognize pride and arrogance and cockiness, and I feel like being unthankful, that shows out. I actually, I'm telling it myself again. I like that, I like that. I realized I had a situation with this that's caused me to kind of think about certain patterns I have and certain characteristics I have. A lot of our friends know that I love good food, and I barbecue my own meat, and I'm particular about how I make it, and whenever I go to restaurants, when we're with friends, I get something, and I find myself critiquing what I've been given. Yeah, yeah. You know? I'm at this really nice restaurant, and I'm like, oh, you know, I would have done it this way, or oh, they didn't do it the way. It's supposed to be done. It's supposed to be done. And so I have this particular way, and it's just me kind of, the way I've justified it is just me walking in my passions with food, right? And a friend of mine said something to me, and I'm like, oh, that was interesting. And I don't think they were trying to be rude to me or mean, but they said, you know, Aaron, you should be a restaurant critic, right? And I think they were sincere, but when I was on the way home, I remembered talking to you. I was like, I think I'm a jerk. You know, I'm sitting at this nice restaurant, I'm enjoying my friends, and there was literally nothing there to complain about, not a single thing, and my critiquing, you know, I'm using my air quotes, is just my unthankfulness. It's me being prideful about my knowledge of things, or something not being good enough. Right. For me. Well, also, I would say for you, it was the value of, I'm paying for this. Like, let's say it was a steak, and I could have done it better for cheaper at home. Right, which is thoughts I have, you know? And who knows if that waiter's listening to me going back and talking to the chef, and like, I'm just one of those guys that complains about a really nice plate of food. You know? It was funny, it's all this unthankfulness is around food. It's not always food. It's not always food. These are just good examples, I think. But like, you know, our life is supposed to be a light in this world, and like, what if I'm sitting there, it could be embarrassing for you, too. I don't know if you've ever been embarrassed. No. I think you have stories in your own life of people acting like this on a bigger scale. Yeah, I was thinking though, like, I think we've shared this in another episode, but when it comes to our kids, especially around food, are we showing them an example of thankfulness when it comes to our food, or are they also going to be critiquing their food? I think you talked about them critiquing my food at home. Which is so dangerous. I'm like, that's your mom. Don't critique your mom's food. You enjoy it. Yeah. But you're right, that's another witness to our children. We're using food as an example a lot, but it goes for everything. Like, if we're not thankful for our car, our home, you know, and that comes out in the way we take care of those things and treat those things and talk about those things. I have an example of you know, just how our ministry as a couple can negatively impact or have that negative impact on our ministry to others, and it's more relational, but if you are doing something that I think you should have done different, or if I think you weren't doing right, and we're in front of a group of people or whatever. For you, or just in general? Just in general, or for me, it doesn't matter, and I don't respond with a heart of thankfulness, because I don't actually see your action as being good. I see it as all the wrong ways that you're doing it, right? Right. Because I don't have that heart of thankfulness, it comes out in my response to you, and then all of the sudden, I feel that. Other people are watching you. Yeah, other people are watching me, and I start to feel embarrassed of my own actions and responses towards you, and I feel like our marriage is weakened and kind of broken. Right, the witness that our marriage has, our unity's gone, 'cause it's like, oh, why'd you do it that way? Can you just go redo it? Yeah. I don't know if I'm making up that e…
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