That the Lord Promised Me

"Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day." ~ Joshua 14:12

Do you remember your wedding vows, the ones that said, "to have and to hold, in good times and bad, for as long as we both shall live,"? Your vows were promises to each other and to God. You were promising that when the going gets tough, you weren't going to walk out, but rather, you were in it for life and would stand up and fight to fulfill your vows. When we are married, God makes promises to us, too. He promises that He has a plan and a purpose for your marriage and if you will only walk with Him and do as He asks, He will fulfill every one of those promises. Now, if you don't know what those promises are, you need to ask God and He'll show you. Once you've received those promises, you must be committed to them. You must be determined to fight for them and often times, they aren't overnight promises.

Consider Caleb. Caleb and Joshua were two of 10 spies who were sent to check out the promise land. When they returned, Caleb and Joshua said that while there were dangers, they knew that God would be faithful to protect them and they could enjoy the land. The other spies had lost sight of the promise of God's protection and saw only the dangers and unfortunately, majority ruled and no one entered in at that time. However, because of their trust, God made promises to both Caleb and Joshua. To Caleb, God promised he'd live at least till 85 years of age and that he'd inherit Hebron the hill country. Caleb was 45 when God made those promises--plenty of time for Caleb to give up and lose heart and doubt.

But Caleb did not doubt and he did not lose heart. Instead, he said, "Now then, just as the Lord promised me, he has kept me alive forty-five years...So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I'm still as strong today...I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day," (Joshua 14:10-12). Caleb knew that God would never forget or take back His promises and because of that Caleb had no fear to stand up and say, "Now give me what was promised to me."

We need to be like Caleb in our marriages. We need to stand up to every authority, person, and any other opposition that holds itself against our marriage. We need to say, "God promised and is faithful and I refuse to give up. I know that God will do as He promised." We need to not fall into the trap of laziness and stop nurturing our marriage, for just as a baby will die without nourishment, so will our marriage. We need to be determined that we will not give up and we will not quit fighting for this blessing for this gift that God has given us. We need to have a Caleb-strong marriage.

Father God, I pray that every person reading this would have the resolve to hang on to their marriage--no matter the state their marriage is in today. Lord, I pray right now that you would come upon every marriage and give them encouragement, help them to know that they are not alone and they don't have to fight alone anymore. Help them to know that, if they ask, you will give them the vision for their marriage and send them fellow believers to surround them and keep them on that track. Lord, I thank you for the blessing of marriage and I pray that you would teach us how to always keep it Holy. In Jesus' Name I pray, Amen.