Although fairytale fantasies are fiction, we often face some of the same elements in our life. We face difficult people and circumstances, we struggle with fear and self-worth, and we want our happily-ever-after on this broken earth. In our real life, every choice has an effect and consequence. We can’t wish our challenges away or pretend they don’t exist like in a fantasy.
The top type of abuse that is rarely acknowledged or addressed in marriages is verbal abuse. Verbal abuse speaks in disrespectful, degrading, dishonoring manners to manipulate, control, and overpower their spouse psychologically. No one is immune to this learned form of toxic, abusive communication, not even “Christians.”
Many Cristian marriages struggle with fighting, sarcasm, and painful words. They want their marriage to be happy. However, they’re not taught to recognize the verbal cycle of abuse or stop it with Jesus. Let’s look at the husband’s words and the wife’s words to see how the cycle of destruction and abuse happens.
If we are not taught what it means to follow Jesus, we often assume that Jesus will instantly tell us what to say and do to love like him. However, our assumptions are what leads to confusion, frustration, doubts about our faith, and even our salvation. In other words, we want to be a “good Christian,” but we are still acting like the selfish sin-focused world. Our wanting and wishing doesn’t change what we say and how we act. Only working with Jesus Christ every day transforms our hearts, minds, words, and actions into his likeness.
But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
The enemy lives in the dark spaces between the truth of God we know and what we don’t know in his word or how our faith is worked out. Jesus told us that we error because we don’t know the word of God or his power. (Matt 22:29) The problem with not knowing or assuming something opens us up to being deceived. To add to many Christian’s confusion is the fact that we are not shown a clear path to understand what the peace of Jesus is, how it works, what we need to do with Jesus to let it flow.
Christ’s words reveal that we will have visible and invisible storm elements in our lives from time to time. Some storms are expected, and we can see them coming. Other storms just pop up because we live in this broken world.
Christ’s peace is always flowing through us, even if we can’t feel it or we don’t think it is there. When we accepted the salvation of Jesus, we received all of him, not certain aspects. However, we must choose to work with him.