To grow together as soul mates, you and your spouse need to tend to one another—and your marriage–on a spiritual level. Without working together to feed your souls, your bond will remain surface-level, putting your marriage at risk for falling apart when restlessness strikes. But when you anchor yourselves spiritually and grow your soul-bond with intention, you allow God’s presence to fill your relationship.
Spiritual nurturing can be achieved by building simple practices into your marriage, then making them habits. Caring for the soul of your marriage doesn’t have to be boring, monotonous, or complicated; on the contrary, the simplicity with which we can connect closer to God and one another is comforting and uplifting. Incorporate each of these practices into your marriage, and watch your relationship transform into something even more beautiful than it already is.
1. Perform Acts of Service Together
Marriage has a funny way of showing us how selfish we can be sometimes–just in our everyday life at home. A healthy marriage demands that we put one another first, letting go of that selfishness. By doing that, we begin performing acts of service for each other.
But take that one step further: working together, as a team, to help others in a shared experience helps us deepen our bond with our spouse. When we do good for others, the acts pull us out of our own heads and our own life and give us fresh perspective on how it feels to truly show God’s love to the world. We become part of something bigger than ourselves.
On many levels, it’s fulfilling to reach out to others, but it also nurtures our marriage and deepens our bond on a soul level. Reaching out in service to others cultivates intimacy between you and your spouse; not only does the act of service itself deepen your bond, the process of identifying and deciding which needs to fill and who to help also binds you closer together.
Some acts of service you and your spouse could consider providing include:
- Visiting the elderly
- Tending to the sick
- Serving at your local children’s hospital or pediatric ward
- Going on mission trips together
- Volunteering at the local homeless shelter
- Hosting, feeding, or mentoring college students
- Showing hospitality and generosity
- Opening your home to friends, family, or those in need
- Reaching out to widows, orphans, single parents, etc.
- Giving materially or financially to someone who needs it
- Participating in local prison ministry
- Preparing or providing meals
Performing acts of service for others doesn’t need to be advertised; it can be done in secret. And sometimes, secretly touching another life is more fulfilling than broadcasting your act to the world. Doing good in secret deepens the intimacy of the act, creating special memories you’ll cherish together for years to come.
2. Worship Together
Worship is a dedicated time to slow down together, recenter your lives, stabilize, and renew your connection with God. When you worship together in community with other believers, you have a spiritual support system like no other. Couples who attend church together nurture the soul of their marriage.
Singing, praying, and learning from God’s word together revitalizes our spirits, and there’s nothing like coming together with friends who share our beliefs. Knowing we’re among other married couples and individuals who are also Christ-followers strengthens our resolve to remain strong in the faith ourselves, encouraging us as we move into the coming week.
We encourage you and your spouse to find a church home where you can anchor yourselves and establish relationships with other believers who will build you up and with whom you can take your spiritual journey. Worshiping together can transform our marriages, bring us closer to God, and teach us to love like Him.
3. Pray Together
Married couples are happiest when they pray together, according to recent research by sociologist Andrew Greeley. They’re twice as likely to describe a high level of romance in their marriages, and they’re even more likely to report higher sexual satisfaction in their relationships than couples who don’t place an emphasis on prayer. In fact, frequency of prayer in your marriage is more important than frequency of sex in determining the health of your relationship.
Prayer connects us on a soul level, transcending superficial bonding and establishing us as true soul mates. You can stay busy in church and perform acts of service regularly, but if you’re not taking time to pray together, your marriage will suffer.
Prayer requires vulnerability; some couples are more comfortable will being vulnerable in front of one another than others. If you or your spouse has a difficult time with feeling uncomfortable with praying in front of one another, try reciting the Lord’s Prayer or dedicating a small amount of time every day for silent prayer together. The most important thing is to establish and practice that essential, soul-nurturing habit of communing with God together.
Do you and your spouse nurture the soul of your marriage? Are there other practices you incorporate in addition to these three that help bring you closer to one another and to God? Share them with us in the comments below.
We share a devotional at dinner time
We enjoy volunteering at marriage retreats! Not only do we testify how God has restored our marriage to other couples, but it also draws us closer to one another!
We pray together on every meal, and before we leave the house for his protection for the day and if anything was to happen that we are in his keep, we pray before we take any trips and pray over all the blessing he has giving us through the opportunity that he has giving us to have the blessing we have. We pray that he opens are eyes to see the what he wants us to do, let are ears hear the word of wisdom to make the right choices, and give are bodies the strength to do his work. AMEN
So glad to have found this site! I wish my first marriage could have been salvaged, but I was the only one interested in implementing change, and although I had to grieve the loss regardless, I had to give him to God, instead of thinking it was my job to educated and change him.
I’d like to give any ‘Second-Time Singles’ – especially those who were willing to fight against divorce with everything in you – some encouragement and insight based on personal experience – experience that was, to be frank, fairly painful. Online dating has become such an ingrained expectation for the ‘modern single’ – and before you know it – you just might be internalizing society’s accepted ‘rituals’ for modern dating – because it’s soooo amazingly common!! It’s especially easy to assume that there’s a ‘right’ way to play the game if you’re new to online dating. TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS, even if you’re totally new to the online scene. Don’t assume that a hidden set of new rules are made for you to follow. Example: Just because a possible dating candidate is shocked that you’re not interested in texting him/her intimate details or asks for photos that are less modest than your gut says is right, don’t be fooled into giving in. Players have always existed, and online dating has only given the player more of a playground. Telling him or her to hit the road, not letting the door hit them on the backside on the way out is still as valid a reply as it always has been!! USE IT!!
So..my encouragement? Be picky. Be patient. Be prayerful. Attractive, Godly men and women are out there! They’re as disillusioned by bad experiences as you are and are as hungry for a Biblically-based remarriage as you are — it just takes time! God’s promises are just as valid in 2018’s crazy tech-saturated world as they ever were. He does not change…His truth does not change. Seek Him FIRST; don’t assume that God isn’t tech-savvy enough to invade this space! When you find yourself hopelessly scanning your inbox for someone with just a hint of moral substance, STOP. Go to God first and renew your priorities. It will happen in His time; any other timeline is a mess waiting to happen!
LOVELY! THANK YOU
It is refreshing to read your comment!
As someone who waited a long time for her first marriage, I couldn’t agree more!! God is bigger than all of our 21st century, societal norms. He can bless you with “exceedingly abundantly more than you can ask or think” with or without the help of the Internet. You just have to remember that His timeline is probably very different than yours, yet he still will have something good and right for you when the time comes!
This is great advice! We have found that all three ideas are important and have added them to our marriage relationship over the years. They do indeed work and we can testify that they are valuable tools in keeping us connected and delighted in our marriage.
We love to have a small group in our home that we facilitate together. Because the material we choose always has a marriage focus, we are regularly renewing our marriage relationship and as Les and Leslie say, there is a boomerang effect!
We love to do that too! God seems to combine our individual natures and gifts and experiences so that we can Coach well together. Not always an easy job but always worthwhile and we feel more connected after 46 years of marriage than ever.
Great advice! I would add something we have just started doing that helps bond the family spiritually together too. We have always prayed together at least once a day as a family ( we have 4 kids, now 20, 18, 16 and 15) but now they are older ,the two oldest are at University ,so we have paired up ( the oldest two girls together , my husband with our youngest son and me with our eldest son) to encourage each other with prayer and reading the Bible. We’ve found using our phones very useful in sharing devotional apps and scriptures.