“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.”
Almost nobody wakes up one morning and decides to blow up their marriage. It happens by a hundred small steps, each one small enough to explain away.
A coworker who's easy to talk to. A conversation at work that gets a little more personal than it should. Complaining about your spouse to someone who's happy to listen and agree. A late night scrolling into things you'd never show your husband or wife. An old name resurfacing in your messages. None of those is adultery, and every one of them is a step toward the door.
Hebrews says let marriage be held in honor. To honor something is to treat it as valuable and to protect it on purpose. Nobody leaves the front door open on something precious and calls it trust.
Guarding a marriage is mostly practical. Keep no secrets about who you're talking to. Don't say anything to someone else that you wouldn't say in front of your spouse. Don't make your marriage the punchline in the break room. If a friendship needs to be hidden or minimized, that's your answer about the friendship. Put real barriers on what you look at when you're alone and tired.
There's a second half to this. Guarding a marriage isn't only about keeping bad things out. It's about keeping good things in. Most affairs, emotional or otherwise, start with a need that went unmet at home for a long time and then got met somewhere else. A marriage where you talk, where you're wanted, where you're paid attention to, is a marriage that's harder to walk away from.
So do both. Close the doors that shouldn't be open, and keep filling the house.
Talk About It Together
Answer honestly. This is about protecting something together, not about accusation.
- Is there anything in either of our lives right now that isn't good for our marriage?
- Do we have any boundaries we should agree on together?
- Is there a need of yours that isn't being met at home?
- How do we talk about each other when the other one isn't in the room?
- What would make you feel most secure in us?
Tonight’s Challenge
Agree on two boundaries you'll both keep, and say them out loud tonight. Then each of you say one thing you love about your marriage that's worth protecting.
Prayer
God, protect what You've given us. Show us anything in our lives that's pulling us apart, and give us the courage to close those doors. Keep our eyes and hearts at home. Fill this marriage so full of honesty and attention that neither of us goes looking anywhere else. Amen.