Jeremiah 29:13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

Intimate relationships can be painful. No human relationship endures more hiding and hurting than marriage. It is within this most intimate of human associations that two people seek to know one another and be known. It is tragic that many people marry to stop being lonely, but soon find themselves lonelier than they were as singles.

I believe that 95 percent of all marriages suffer from isolation, and few people in marriage realize how desperately alone they really are. Often a husband and wife begin drifting apart so slowly that they hardly recognize the slide. Then, after a few years of hiding and poor communication, they realize that their once romantic love has grown stale. That's why many successful-looking marriages aren't much more than two successful people independently doing their own thing; they aren't friends and life-partners.

How do you defeat this drift to isolation?

I believe the most important thing you can do as a couple is to regularly pray together. Carmen and I began this spiritual discipline shortly after we were married, and I believe it's done more for our marriage than any other single thing. If there's a problem between us, we find that we either resolve the problem and pray, or go to sleep angry. Because of our commitment to end each day in prayer, we have learned to build bridges of understanding between us, forgive one another, and then pray.

Praying together keeps us from hiding from one another.

Praying that we all learnto be more open,
Pastor Mike