Have you ever noticed how no one ever starts a new diet on a Friday?  Nope. We all know that Monday is the day to start a new diet. Along that same vein, most of us "know" the first of the month is the time to begin a new financial habit and the New Year is the time we wipe the slate clean and start fresh in just about every area of our lives. There isn't anything magical about January 1^st but we seem to honor it as the day of new beginnings. 

New beginnings are great, but there is a whole lot more to wiping the slate clean than just turning the page on the calendar. Take our marriages for example.

Marriage is a complex and wonderful relationship that at its best reflects a constant state of “clean slate” thinking and interaction.  God’s design for marriage was to mirror His love for us – a love that is constantly faithful to forgive us and freely invites us into His loving presence to experience a deeper relationship with Him. Despite our calling to imitate God’s “clean slate” love, it is easy to fall short in our marriages. And over time, failing to love each other as God loves us can become “just the way things are” in our marriages.  

Maintaining a clean slate marriage is not simply about having an absence of offenses in your relationship. It is having a fresh stream of living water running through the heart of your relationship at all times. As we formulate New Year’s resolutions to shed pounds, get organized and send birthday cards to all our friends and family on time this year (I always mess that one up!), we ought to also evaluate the state of our marriage. What is the fuel our relationship runs on? Where is our marriage headed? How are we growing? What is great about us as a couple? What isn’t? 

If we want to have marriages with streams of Living Water running through the center, we need to honestly assess a few things:

1. Have you asked Jesus to be your personal Lord and Savior?  He promises Living Water to spring up in the dry places in your heart when you accept His sacrifice and invite Him into your life (John 4:14).  If your spouse has not begun a relationship with Jesus, don’t give up hope.  Pray for them diligently!

2. Do you seek Him daily through His Word?  When we read, believe and act on the Bible the broken places in us as individuals and in our marriages can be washed clean (Ephesians 5:26, Romans 12:2).  How much time do you read the Bible or Christian books together as a couple?  It has taken my husband and I a lot of energy and focus to maintain a habit of reading together (and we don’t do it perfectly) but the blessings are incalculable.  It draws us together, gives us perspective and grows us.