Marriage and family, by God's design, is one of life's greatest privileges and most amazing adventures. But the devil's plan for marriage includes making life miserable and destroying you to the core.  God created a family before He created the church…These are stressful times in which we live.  And almost every day you hear about another home where the string has snapped.

Stress in a home is like sand to machinery, and a marriage that should be smooth and efficient instead begins to slowly grind away!

1.               Learn to Laugh
Proverbs 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. 

Laughter is a gift God has given to us, to release tension, and to keep our spirits from being broken in this sin-cursed earth.  According to this verse, it’s one of God’s ways of keeping us healthy, emotionally and physically.  Medical science has proven that when you laugh, chemicals and enzymes are released in the brain which is extremely important to the health of our vital organs.

 An article from a secular magazine called Executive Digest:  “Scientists have been studying the effects of laughter on human beings and have found, among other things, that laughter has a profound and instantaneous effect on virtually every important organ of the human body.  Laughter reduces unhealthy tensions and relaxes the tissues, as well as exercising the most vital organs.  Laughter, even when forced, results in a beneficial effect on us, both mentally and physically.  So, the next time you feel nervous and jittery, indulge in a good laugh.”

2.               Cultivate Contentment
We try to have too much too quickly...we want everything our parents got over several decades, and now...on credit!  The devil is heaping stress upon us and we need to remember things won't make us happy.

Don’t even get on the treadmill of materialism, it doesn’t take you anywhere! (if only we had a bigger, nicer house, newer car…no, if you’re not happy w/ what you’ve got now, you wouldn’t be then, it has nothing to do w/ it.) 

3.               Alleviate Anger
Proverbs 15:18
18 A wrathful man stirreth up strife: but he that is slow to anger appeaseth strife. 

The clear lesson here:  the way to control anger is to control your mouth…your tongue! Nothing will reduce stress and tension in the home like getting control of your words.

        When you are mad, angry, upset (and those times will come) keep your mouth shut!  “Be angry, and sin not!”

4.               Walk in Wisdom
We need to do some prevention, especially if things are good now at home.  Because many times the marriage which started out as the ideal becomes an ordeal and somebody starts looking for a new deal! 

Strife and tension result when there’s confusion when we’re not on the same page when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing…the result isn’t unity and harmony, it’s division, strife, tension, and stress!

You can build your home on 1 of 2 foundations:  rock or sand

·      The difference is whether or not you put Christ first in your life/marriage…that's building on The Rock…and when the winds of adversity blow, and the waves of disappointment roll in, your house will be able to weather the storm.  That’s walking in wisdom!

And then you can build something beautiful together!  On the foundation of Christ.