Eldredge John - Love and war devotional for couples: the 8-week adventure that will help you find the marriage you always dreamed of

L OVE AND W AR D EVOTIONAL FOR C OUPLES
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica Inc.TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. Scripture quotations marked (NASB ) are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org). Scripture quotations marked (NLT ) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

eISBN: 978-0-307-72994-1

Copyright 2011 by John Eldredge and Stasi Eldredge

Published in association with Yates & Yates, www.yates2.com.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eldredge, John, 1960
Love and war devotional for couples : the 8-week adventure that will help you find the marriage you always dreamed of / John and Stasi Eldredge.1st ed.
p. cm.
1. SpousesPrayers and devotions. 2. MarriageReligious aspectsChristianityMeditations. I. Eldredge, Stasi. II. Title.
BV4596.M3E43 2011
242.644dc22

2010027090

v3.1

Our lives are lived moment by moment, in increments we can actually handle. Our marriages are lived the same way. Not anniversary to anniversary or even month to month, but dailyin the ordinary ins and outs of time. The choices we make in the moments create the lives we enjoyor dont. Thus, a love and war devotional. This devotional is a tool for you, for your marriage. We invite you to walk alongside us for eight weeksfive days a weekand dive deeper into the tangible realities of your marriage. Well focus on Scripture and the heart of God and the heart that he placed in you and the heart he has placed in your spouse.

The journey of our lives is a journey of transformation. We are here to learn how to love. How do we learn? Moment by moment. Day by day. Week by week. Our marriages grow and become what God intended and what we ultimately long for in the same way. We are all of us learning to love.

Lets learn together.

We love because he first loved us.

1 J OHN 4:19

W e probably ought to just start here: marriage is fabulously hard.

Maybe thats an odd way to begin, but it is true, and everybody whos been married knows this, though years into marriage it still catches us off guard, all of us. And newly married couples, when they discover how hard it is, seem genuinely surprised. Shocked and disheartened by the fact. Are we doing something wrong? Did I marry the right person? The wonders that lure us into marriageromance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionshipsometimes seem so far from the actual reality of married life that we wind up fearing weve made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong bus, missed our flight. And so the hardness of marriage can also come as something of an embarrassment.

Or maybe its just us. Dont you feel embarrassed to admit how hard your marriage is?

Yep. This is everyone. We might as well come out and admit it.

The sooner we get that shame off our backs, the sooner well find our way through. Of course marriage is hard. In fact, if you look back at the first marriage, that fairy-tale start in Genesis, you see that Adam and Eve had a pretty rough go at it. And they didnt even have parents to screw them up as children or friends giving them ridiculous advice. The fall of man seems to come during the honeymoon or shortly thereafter. (And how many honeymoon stories seem to reenact that little drama?) They hit rough water as soon as they set sail. This is the story of the first marriage, and its a bit sobering.

But it also gives us some encouragement. Its normal for marriage to be hard. Even the best of marriages.

And God is in that.

In order to have the life we want, the life we are made for, and the marriage we long for, we need God. Thats a very good thing! Because without him, nothing is as it should be. With him, all things are possible. Yes, marriage can be extremely hard. But that is not a reason to despair. Nor is it the final truth. There are seasons in marriagein every relationship. Marriage is meant to be wonderful, and most of the time it is. Though its sometimes so hard, think of the difficulty as a doorway. A doorway to all the more Jesus has for us in himself! There is hope!

Dear God, as I begin this study, I offer up this time for your purposes. Please help me draw closer to your heart and deepen my marriage in every good way. Sometimes it is very hard. Even painful. I invite you into that as well. Have your way with me, with my spouse, and with our marriage. We need you. I am looking to you. In Jesus mighty name, amen.

Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:35)

What do you want?Jesus

J OHN 1:38

S omewhere along the way, we all lose heart in marriage. We all do. It happens to the best of us. The Dan Fogelberg song Along the Road speaks of a relationship that has joy at the start, and suggests that along the journey, the heart gets lost in the learning.

We might find a way to manage our disappointment. We might do our best to fight off resignation, but it works its way in. We let go of what we wanted, what we dreamed of, what we were created for. We begin to settle. Oftentimes we even forget what it was we wanted in the first place!

Because marriage is hard, sometimes painfully hard, your first great battle is not to lose heart. That begins with recovering desirethe desire for the love that is written on your heart. Let desire return. Let it remind you of all that you wanted, all that you were created for. And then consider thiswhat if God could bring you your hearts desire? What if the two of you could find your way to something beautiful?

That would be worth fighting for.

Dont start with, How can that happen? The how will come in time. You have to begin with