One Expectation You Can Plan For

What if I were to tell you that you were not in control when you chose to marry your spouse? What if I told you that Someone else created your story and that your marriage is actually not by anything you did. Sometimes we think that we are way more powerful then we really are. Our stories, including marriage ones, are all ordained by the wonderful and open minded Creator who knows exactly what we need and when we need it.

So why then would He create a marriage with two completely different people? There have been multiple books that are written about the specific God intentional personalities as male and female. And how the gender wiring were meant to be completely different for our good. But when we are living in real life and we experience those differences, it can easily feel like it is definitely not for our good.

So in what ways can we truly live out the differences we experience between husband and wife and then unite together as one in our differences?

Tripp helps us by giving us five ways to deal the differences we are confronted with in our marriage. Read below to learn more about what they are!

Difference Mechanisms

Celebrate your creator
Refuse to see the differences as right or wrong.
Determine to respond to your differences with appreciation and respect.
Learn where your differences create difficulty and call yourself to unification work.
Admit where these differences challenge you to grow.

Unity

Our goal as a couple is to learn how to become in sync with each other, especially through our differences. As a husband and wife, we complete each other because we are fashioned to operate differently. So when we allow those differences to work against us and cause us to move backwards as couple, we aren’t really learning and understanding each other. And that is not unity. Unity is to be able to grow deeper and closer to grace. We need to learn how to use the strengths of our spouse for the sake of our weaknesses. And thankfully we have a whole future together with our spouses for those growth opportunities.

A Plan for the Prepared Expectation of Differences

We also need to better understand God’s biblical plan for us in marriage when it comes to the differences we are going to experience. Differences are expectations we can plan for. So if you are a newly engaged couple, expect differences. To help deal with these expectations, Tripp gives a plan for the expected struggle so we may wrap our minds around what it looks like.

God is in absolute control of the details of our lives.
He has a purpose for the situations and locations in which he places us.
Marriage is one of God’s primary tools of personal change and growth.
Three main tools of difference are used to reveal and change our hearts.
1. The difference in personal hardwiring we each have from God.
2. The difference in viewpoints and tastes according to our cultural and relational up-bringing.
3. The difference in personal sin and failures and in our growth in grace.
Change begins when we see these differences as grace rather than obstructions of grace.
God is with you in your struggle.

Final Encouragements

What is so great about differences is that we know we all have them. It is relatively easier to go into a marriage openly admitting you and your fiancé are different. Even if you are in a 10 year marriage, you can just freely confess that you and your spouse are different. There is nothing wrong with being different. It is how you choose to prepare for that expectation. Paul Tripp does an excellent job of preparing us for dealing with an expectation such as this. I would encourage you to:

Identify and write down with your fiancé or spouse what your differences are into three separate groups:

Hardwire Difference (personality)
Perspective and Viewpoint Differences (cultural upbringing or relational experiences)
Personal Sin and Growth in Grace Differences

Write 3 differences in each category and then intentionally discuss what kind of step you are going to take according to Tripp’s plan book above to unify your lives together.

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AUTHOR OF THE MARRIAGE SERIES: Taylor Wild

Note: We do not hold degrees in psychology, nor are we doctors, but people who have a heart to share wisdom.

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Engagement Location: DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN.

Photographer: APRIL MAURA PHOTOGRAPHY

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