Essential Ingredients for the Marriage God Wants You to Have

A common recipe for homemade bread calls for flour, salt, sugar, water, yeast, and oil. Eliminate any of these items, and the mixture isn’t bread. Every ingredient is necessary. None can be forgotten. Bread isn’t bread unless all the components are present, mixed together in the right combination, and baked for a specific amount of time. The same is true for a great marriage. Several key ingredients are required to build and sustain a great marriage relationship that is full of hope, joy and purpose. The essential ingredients to develop and sustain a great marriage are heart, hope and skills.

To successfully coach your own marriage it is essential to use effective skills and to do helpful exercises with a heart of love and to hope in faith for more and better in your relationship. Both heart and hope are gifts of God through an authentic relationship with Jesus, so two-thirds of what you need comes from Him, not other people, including your spouse. Once these are established, skills will help you to steward relationship healing and strengthening opportunities because skills and exercises are the channels through which your love and hope are given to your partner, and through which your partner can express their hopeful love to you.

From Marriage Coaching: Heart Hope and Skills for a Great Relationship