Spiritual Intimacy in Our Marriages- Part One

Why is spiritual intimacy so important in a marriage? Have you ever had a situation come up that you needed some spiritual guidance and trust from your spouse? I have, and I have found that spiritual intimacy doesn’t just appear whenever you need it! I have also found that just going to church together, or attending a Bible class together or even praying with each other doesn’t necessarily mean you have spiritual intimacy with one another. Don’t get me wrong…all of those things are very important and a must to help establish spiritual intimacy, but they aren’t the only things that establish and keep spiritual intimacy alive. So let’s look at this issue and get a better understanding of what we need to do to achieve intimacy within our marriages. First let’s look at why it’s so easy to overlook this type of intimacy in our marriages. Our lives are inundated with busyness such as: work, kids, households, church activities and ministries, extended families and friends. We can go on and on with what is taking up our time and energy and focus! If we don’t have a good grasp of how important it is to keep our spiritual intimacy alive and updated with our spouses, then we won’t feel the need to make it happen. Growing together spiritually is not our natural bent. This area of our marriage is probably the least developed area of our relationship. We have to be PROACTIVE in this and know that it is the life buoy for a Godly and joyful marriage. That doesn’t mean that hard times and misunderstandings won’t come and go, but it is possible to live in a spiritually joyful marriage. It takes time, effort and focus. Over the next couple of articles I will write about the hindrances to spiritual intimacy and how we can strengthen this area of our marriages. But for right now, let me give you an illustration of how important this area is. Imagine you are sailing across the water and the boat goes down. You are left treading water for hours and hours. You are all alone, exhausted and ready to give up any hope of a rescue. You look up and in the distance you see a life buoy floating in the water, it’s far enough away that you will have to swim a good distance to reach it. Are you too tired to try to swim to it, or do you muster all the energy you have because you know that if you can just reach it, it will help you hold on and live? Of course…you are going to do whatever it takes to get to that life buoy because you know that no matter what it takes, you want to give yourself every chance there is to make it! Well, that’s how we need to look at the spiritual intimacy in our marriage! The salvation of Jesus Christ is the foundation to any marriage, and spiritual intimacy is the life buoy. In Part Two of this series, I want to look at some of the roadblocks that exists and hinder our success in this area.