Happy Monday!  I hope you had a good weekend.  We had a great time encouraging couples at Harmony Bible Church in Danville, IA over the weekend!

I learned over the weekend that about mid-last week the ability to leave comments on my blog shut down.  (Sometimes technology is so frustrating!) I’m so sorry if you tried to leave a comment on Thursday’s post (My Bonus Year) or Friday’s post (Quote of the Week). The comments are working now!

One of the topics that came up at our marriage event in Iowa on Friday night was the topic of judgment and just how much damage it can do in a marriage.  Because of that, today’s Marriage Monday is about rooting out judgment.

Mark says…
Judgment happens when we form a negative opinion of our spouse in our mind. Sometimes we’ll speak out judgment and sometimes we just think it.

Jill says…
Regardless of whether it’s spoken or unspoken, judgment can cause a lot of damage in our marriage relationship.

Mark says…
You might think, “She never folds my shirts the way I want. Can’t she do anything right?”

Jill says…
Or a wife might think, “I always have to ask him three times to do something. Can’t he think for himself?”

Mark says…
You might think your spouse is dumb, stupid, or even “less than.”  Thoughts like these are judgments we make.  Judgments are sin—they separate us from God and they separate us from others.

Jill says…
Anything that separates us from our spouse needs to be rooted out of our heart.  Here’s how to root out judgment:

• Take your thoughts captive. (2 Corinthians 10:5).  This means that we evaluate our thoughts and identify if they are truth or lies.  Truth comes from God, lies come from the enemy.  Remember the enemy wants to destroy your marriage…don’t believe the lies he whispers into your ear about your spouse.
• Ask for forgiveness. When you identify a judgmental thought, immediately tell God you’re sorry and ask for forgiveness. This process of cleaning up our heart reconnects us to God and to our spouse.
• Apologize for your words. If you’ve spoken judgment to your spouse, then you’ve said hurtful words.  Go to him or her and apologize for the careless words you spoke.  Ask for forgiveness.
• Apologize for your actions. If you’ve not spoken judgment to your spouse, but you’ve interacted with them with judgment in your heart, they will likely have been affected by your demeaning tone of voice or your cold body language. Apologize for any way your judgment might have indirectly affected them.

Mark says…
God addresses this so well in the Bible when he says in Romans 2:1-4:

“Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done…God is kind, but he’s not soft. In kindness he takes us firmly by the hand and leads us into a radical life-change.”

Jill says…
God uses marriage to grow us up.  He uses marriage to deal with the yuck in our hearts. He uses marriage to bring about life-change.

Dealing with the judgment in our heart is an important life-change that God longs for in each of us.

Want to change your marriage? Start today with yourself and deal with the judgment in your own heart.  It’s a change that could transform you and your marriage.