“These words, which I command you today, shall be on your heart; and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.”
If you have children, they will take everything you have and ask for more. That's not a complaint. It's just the job.
And here's the quiet danger. A couple can spend eighteen years running an excellent household together and slowly stop being married. Co-parents, roommates, a very effective logistics team. Then the last one leaves for college and two strangers look at each other across the kitchen.
Deuteronomy describes faith taught in the middle of ordinary life. Sitting in the house, walking by the way, lying down, getting up. Not a special program. The everyday texture of a home. What your kids absorb about God, love, and marriage comes mostly from what they watch happening between the two of you on regular days.
Which means your marriage is not a distraction from parenting. It is a major part of the parenting. They're learning what a man says to a woman he loves. They're learning whether adults apologize. They're learning what happens in a house when someone is wrong.
Practically, back each other up in front of the kids and sort out disagreements privately. Kids find the gap between two parents fast, and it's not good for anyone. Don't let every conversation you have be about logistics. And protect a little time that belongs to just the two of you, even if it's twenty minutes after bedtime with the television off.
If you don't have children, this still applies. Whatever your season demands most, it will happily take everything, and your marriage will get the leftovers unless you decide otherwise.
Guard the thing the whole house is built on.
Talk About It Together
Talk about your marriage here, not just about the kids or the schedule.
- Are we still a couple, or have we mostly become teammates running a household?
- Where do we disagree about parenting or priorities, and how should we handle that privately?
- What do our kids see modeled between us? What would we want them to see?
- When was the last time we had time that was just ours?
- What is one thing we could protect for our marriage in this season?
Tonight’s Challenge
Put one date on the calendar in the next two weeks. It doesn't have to cost anything. Tonight, spend twenty minutes talking about something other than logistics.
Prayer
Father, this season takes everything we have. Help us not to lose each other inside it. Let our children see a marriage worth wanting. Give us patience with each other on the hardest days and remind us to protect what our whole house is built on. Amen.