"We Are Just Friends"

“We are just friends,” If we feel the need to say this I feel that we have already hit justification mode. It is so easy to get caught up in Satan’s small little deceptions. Every sin starts out in a smaller, innocent, and easily justified form. Its all sin, but those little infractions form individual threads that one by one intricately weave together until we are caught in a web much harder to be released from. Why do we allow ourselves to be led one tread at a time? Why do we allow our eyes to wander, our words to flatter, our hearts to yearn, and ultimately our bodies to betray? My favorite thing we read about this week was that the "grass is greener on the side you water" (Goddard, 2009). If we are spending the time in the “garden” of our marriage instead of the field of “friendship” we will have adequate time to weed, cultivate, care for, and nurture our most prized relationships. When we wander to and take time away to cultivate and treasure other relationships above our little garden. We risk letting it become overrun with neglect. Of course, if we leave our garden for any length of time weeds will begin to grow, bugs infest, and thorns emerge, in our once beautiful garden. If we compare our garden to another we will feel it is not enough. Why do we leave our garden? We leave for many reasons, we feel it is too much work, we feel that it is not what we thought it would be, we feel that we deserve a change. The flowers that bloom are not exactly what we had hoped for. This imagery of the grass being greener where we water is perfect for the marriage relationship. If we neglect or fail to care for our marriage other garden's will look better. But if we are diligent, mindful, and ever present in our marriage it will grow and each flower that blooms will have meaning and purpose in our lives. Each marriage has times of hardship where we must make choices on how best to help our garden continue to grow. True marriage is a celestial covenant and because of its importance to our Heavenly Fathers plan Satan will try to attack it as best as he can. He will not come storming in beating down the door to destroy it. He will work his way in the cracks and tiny spaces that we allow him to fill. We need to be diligent in keeping those cracks and tiny spaces from forming. We need to care for and water the grass where we are instead of hoping for greener garden’s elsewhere.

Goddard, H. W. (2009). Drawing heaven into your marriage: eternal doctrines that change relationships. Cedar Hills, UT: Joymap Publishing.