Free Making Marriage Work by Joyce Meyer Page A

each other.
    If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God [Who gives] to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given to him.
    James 1:5
    We don’t have to try to make our marriages successful on our own. God promises to help us, and we should go to Him on a daily, even moment-by-moment, basis and ask for help. I did not know to go to God and I was caught in my old nasty habit of selfish gratification, even though it wasn’t gratifying. Dave, who was Spirit-filled, did know to take our struggles to the Lord, and when I finally received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, our relationship took a turn toward God’s better plan for us.
    Prayer changes us from the inside out. As I spent time with God, praying in the Holy Spirit, I could hear God speak wisdom to me concerning our marriage. I learned that a house divided against itself cannot stand. I had to learn to walk with Dave and not against him all the time.
    As I spent time with God, praying in the Holy Spirit, I could hear God speak wisdom to me concerning my marriage.
    When I became Spirit-filled, I was more vocal about it than Dave had been, and we were put out of the Protestant church we attended. We lost almost all our friends who attended there. When we started listening to charismatic faith teachers, our previous friends thought we were crazy. God led me to have a Bible study in my home. That was when I started spending so many hours a day reading God’s Word.
    I had so many personality problems, and after receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit, God started confronting me with truth. Truth always brings freedom from bondage and despair, but it was a long, hard battle because I was rebellious, full of fear, and terribly insecure. I acted as if I didn’t, need anybody, but I knew I did. I acted tough, but I really wasn’t. I had rough and grumpy mannerisms, and there was a lot to overcome. But from the minute I started studying, I had a teaching gift. God just put in me the desire and ability to make His Word clear to others.
    I have always had a strong gift of communication in both written and oral expressions. Once I was Spirit-filled, I was able to stop communicating rebellion, fear, and insecurity and express agreement, love, and confidence. My gift wasn’t worth much until God changed my nature.
    WHO CONTROLS YOUR SPIRIT?
    Malachi 2:16 tells us to keep a watch on our spirit and be controlled by God’s Spirit. We cannot expect a thing to work right if we are not going to listen to God. If we do not listen to God, we are not going to have a good marriage. It’s pretty straightforward and simple, isn’t it? But, if we will listen to God, we will have a great marriage. Therefore be controlled by God’s Spirit. Now, let’s read verse 17 of Malachi 2:
    You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, In what way have we wearied Him? …
    God will tell us, and tell us, and tell us, and tell us what we are doing wrong, then we’ll go back to Him and ask, “Well, what am I doing wrong?” In answer to our question of how we have wearied Him, God says, …
[You do it when by your actions] you say, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he delights in them. Or [by asking], Where is the God of justice?
(v. 17). We weary the Lord with our words and the way we act.
    In other words, He’s saying, “It wearies Me when by your actions you act as if what you are doing is all right when My Word has already told you that it’s not all right.” That wearies the Lord and He gets tired of it.
    When we tell our children what to do, it really makes us happy if they just go do it. If they happily obey, we want to bless them. But if they are rebellious and continue on their own way acting as though everything is O K even though we told them not to do what they are doing, we get tired of that, too.
    Some people’s perception of God is that He is perfect; therefore, He can’t