Marriage is a wonderful thing. It really is. But it can be full of stress and tension at times, and when that happens, it can make things tough.

All marriages experience such periods. Some of them can be big issues like finances, or family circumstances, or an illness or death in the family. Or they can be smaller, like why she didn’t make the bed, or why he left the seat up on the toilet. And sometimes, those issues feel like a tug of war.

There are two primary forces that are at play in any relationship, especially a marriage (actually, there are three, but we’ll get to the third one in a minute). These forces can pull us back and forth, just like in a tug of war. These forces are truth and love.

Ephesians 4:15 states:  “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ…” (ESV)

Truth is honesty and integrity. It if being forthright in the relationship. It is being open and allowing your wife a complete view of who you are. Truth means that you are vulnerable. It means that you are intimate, to the level of your very soul. It can be scary and intimidating to invite truth into your marriage, but unless you do, you’ll never experience the depths of intimacy you could have together. You communicate truth to one another in one of two ways: either by being critical or by encouragement.

Love, on the other hand, is much different. It’s acceptance. It’s forbearance, the ability to overlook a fault or flaw. It’s forgiveness. It’s much more than just an emotional feeling, the one you had when you proposed to your wife. This is the other side of the coin from truth.

The problems come when we emphasize one or the other too much. On one hand, we have the power of truth. Truth says that I can know my wife more intimately and closely and honestly than anyone else in my entire life. On the other hand, you have love, which means the way I treat her could help heal her, and strengthen her, and help her grow spiritually, into who Christ wants her to be.

Unfortunately, what happens is that most of the time, we display one or the other. Either we’re really good when it comes to truth, and we are honest and open. Sooner or later, she will tune you out because all you ever do is speak truth and it’s never in love. But on the other hand, some of us are really, really good at love, but we never honestly say how we’re feeling. We just avoid the big elephant in the room and avoid speaking out in truth.

And that’s where the third force comes into play. It’s called grace. And it’s the part where Jesus comes into our marriage and makes it into what we could never do on our own. Grace is the power of the gospel, displayed in our marriage. Grace allows us to to do two very important things: forgive and repent. When I can see the sin and the imperfections in my wife, I can forgive… because I am forgiven. Because until you really recognize what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross and through his resurrection, you will never be able to fully forgive anyone else. You and I can forgive, because we have been forgiven. And my wife can forgive, because I understand my own sin, and repent of it.

Truth. Love. Grace. The three forces at play within a marriage. All three are necessary as we strive to build the best marriages we can… the marriages that God desires us to have.

Marriage Matters!  So what do you need to do about it?

Be deliberate, men!

Have you experienced the grace of Jesus Christ? If not, what’s preventing you from accepting it right now? What about extending that grace into your marriage? What do you need to do? You can leave your thoughts in the comments section below.