I recently spoke at Mops at my church, and it was such fun to look out at all the freshly scrubbed faces and eager smiles.  My topic was Marriage or should I say—

Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday.

Y'all I so wanted to say that line from The Princess Bride.  But, I did not.Ok, now I will be serious and share with you what I said that morning. Today is Part one.

A Wise Woman Builds.

With God’s Help, You Can Have a Life-Giving Marriage

My main point was that we are all building our marriages.

A wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tear it down with her own hands. Proverbs 14:1 

I love how it says we build our house and tear down with our OWN hands.  Yikes.I brought two bricks with me that morning.  You know how sometimes you feel like you are carrying a brick in your purse because it weights a ton?  Well last week I actually was carrying a brick- actually two bricks.I used the bricks as imagery for the walls we build.

 With God’s help, we can build a marriage that is flourishing and life-giving.  A marriage that will change the world one house at a time.

This was my thesis statement.  Remember those?  Remember how  your English teacher in high school hammered that idea into you?Too Broad.  Too narrow.  What do you want to say, Leslie?  What do you want the reader to hear?This is what I want you the reader to hear.  To remember.We can build our marriage brick by brick.   With God’s help, we  can build a marriage that is flourishing and life-giving.   A marriage that will change the world one house at a time.I started out saying God’s best for us is a marriage between one man and one woman.   The world isn’t saying this right now.  The world is saying anything goes.  We are living in a time of cultural upheaval.  But you know me, and you know that here at Sursee Gal, I am going to hold up God’s truth over our opinions.I know I sound like an old person, but hey, I am!  And it tells me in Titus 2:3-5 how I am to live and behave:3 Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.Titus 2:3-5I see here that the first thing I am to do to encourage the younger woman to love her husband.So no matter where you are in your marriage- a few month or  years or decades in, you can be a wise woman who is building, with God’s help, a marriage that is life giving and flourishing A marriage that will change the world one house at a time.Can you imagine right now what it will be like in 18 years when your baby is grown and heading off to college?  My friends who are reading this in their own empty nest, nod and smile wistfully right here.The days are long but the years are short. ~ Gretchen RubinWhere do you want to be in your marriage in 18 years??Where are you investing?Your kids are only in your home for a short time…your husband, well, he is there for the long term.What  are you building today?  What bricks are you using to build your marriage?I want to talk about three things in this series.How We Make our Bricks.  The Bricks of our Words.The Bricks of our Actions.In Part one, we will start with how we make our bricks as we spend time with Him each day.Brick by brick we are building walls.  Building, building. Are you building or tearing down?Our time with Him is where we craft our bricks.A side note here, remember gals, we are going to live Seasonally.Seasons come.  Seasons go.  Seasons come back around. Things change right?  When I talk about time with the Lord, I know it is going to look different in different seasons.  Our relationship with the Lord is our brick making time.   When we spend time with Him, we create and craft the building blocks we need to build our marriage.  We need this time to make our bricks.  We need a faithful God with us.The Bible says we need Him to build our house.  Look with me at Psalm 127:1:Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.God is always building something beautiful in you when you spend time with Him.  He is changing your heart.  Your mind.  Your thoughts. Your desires.To build our marriage, we need His bricks, and we are making those bricks in our time with HIm.But what does that look like- this time spent with the Lord?It means you start your day with this time.  I think that first thing in the morning before the kids wake up and the day begins is a great time.The Bible talks about this being an important time- this morning time.Let me share a few verses about what God says.Psalm 5:3In the morning, O Lord, You will hear my voice;In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.Psalm 90:14O, satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.Psalm 92:1,2It is good to give thanks to the LordAnd to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning and Your faithfulness by night,Our time spent in the word changes us daily. Unless the Lord builds, we labor in vain.Daily. Monthly. Yearly. Our God is faithful.We make bricks when we spend time with Him.He gives us the material- The dirt. The water. The straw. The heat. The drying time.Brick by brick we spend time with Him and make our bricks to build our marraige.Practically speaking what does this look like?  I’m going to run through some ideas for you all that have encouraged me.The Chronological BibleIt is easy to follow.  You can join with others.  It keeps you on pace.  It is exciting to finish the whole Bible in a year.Reading through PsalmsPsalm 119 has so many beautiful verses about His word.  Camp out here to make some bricks.Reading through Proverbs.One for each day of the month. Keep it simple, gal.Listen to it.Listen on your phone while you are putting on your makeup, driving in the car,  or in the afternoon for a pepper upper.  LISTEN.Art JournalTake one verse and draw it.  Letter it.  Meditate on it.  Get your crafty side on.  ArtMeditations on IG is a new favorite of mine for inspiration.Time with Him looks different in different seasons  How long it lasts, what you read, how deeply you dive. Give yourself grace.God is building and making bricks during this time and we join in.God tells us to Meditate on His word day and night. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.  Joshua 1:8Your time in the word gives you the materials for the bricks you build for your marriage. As you listen to Him and create space for Him, He will change you.  We have to slow down and do this.What if this is hard for you?*We can ask Him for a desire for His word.  He will do that.*Be accountable with a friend.*GIVE YOURSELF GRACE!  There will be seasons of plenty and seasons of want.  Just hop back in.Without this time in the Word, we make our own bricks.This is seen in the Tower of Babel story.  Listen to how they crafted bricks without God.  They had a universal language and gathered on the plain to do some building:3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. 4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:3,4The Lord came down to see what they had done and the Bible says he was not happy with this.  He saw where they were going with this- without Him, and so he confused their language and scattered them all over the earth.  It did not go so well for them when they worked and built without God, and it is the same with us.Let’s be wise women who build our house with God as we spend time with Him.    With God’s help, we can build a marriage that is flourishing and is life-giving.  A marriage that will make a difference and change the world one house at a time.I want to remind you, here, that even if you don’t believe this,If you are thinking to yourself….Sursee Gal, I don’t buy this.I can’t get up and do that….You don’t understand….I challenge you to ask for the Faith to believe.God is cool with that.  He shows us in Mark 9:24 that it is ok to ask for faith.Mark 9 tells the story of the father whose son was ill.  The boy was mute and filled with a spirit that caused him to throw himself into the fire and then into the water to destroy him.It goes on to say that the father asks for help from the disciples, and they cannot help.  So the father finds Jesus and and the father tells him:It has often thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.”24 Immediately the boy’s father cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Do you see that?  The father says he believes and then cries out for Jesus to help his unbelief.  God knows us.  He knows we even need Him to give us faith.  He is ok with that. He is for us.So gals, let’s ask for faith to believe that when we spend time with Him, He will change us and give us the bricks we need to build a marriage that is life-giving and flourishing.   A marriage that will change the world one house at a time.In parts two and three we will talk about the bricks of our Words and Actions and how we use those bricks to  build our house.