2 Chronicles 7:14 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we're releasing a short daily devotional for your marriage. Over these 66 days, we'll be sharing one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talking about how it applies to your life and marriage. Listen to all 66 episodes of these and you'll have a better understanding of God's Word and His perfect plan for your marriage. Let's dive in to today's scripture. Hello and welcome back to the Summer of Scripture. We are on day 14, you guys. We are completing the first two weeks of this. Congratulations. Thank you for your commitment. I hope you guys are really learning a lot through this and growing in your faith and also in your marriage. I hope you had great conversations. So we're going to continue on today. In Second Chronicles, chapter 7, verse 14, it says this then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear them from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. I love this so much. I know we've heard this before. It's one of my favorite verses. It's just so beautiful. And it's such a wonderful promise from the Lord.

Yeah, it really is. And I think in today, just in the crazy, divisive times that we live in, I think this is a prayer that we should pray for our lives, our family, our marriage, and for our nation. And not only those who live in the United States like us, but for your nation, wherever in the world that you happen to live. Cause thankfully, the Kingdom of God is global and the Naked Marriage audience has grown to be global. And we're so thankful for you from all parts of the world. Thank you for listening and watching. But to be people of prayer, to be people who are humbling ourselves and saying, God forgive us, start a revival in me. It's not just, oh, our leaders are messed up or this is messed up, but to say, God, point out what's wrong in me and let it start in me. And that's what humility really is, is recognizing God, that I need to grow, I need to learn, I need to be part of the solution, because I know I've been part of the problem in my own marriage, in my own home, in my own nation. And if we'll truly turn to God, humble ourselves, seek him, return to him. He wants to bring restoration. God is a God of restoration. And if your marriage feels broken, if whatever in your life feels broken, he wants to bring restoration, but he brings it his way. And that's. We have to seek it his way, which is humbling ourselves and inviting him to be the leader where we've tried to take the reins and be in control, and we're the ones who've usually messed things up. We need to hand things back over to him and say, lord, show me what it means to lean on you, to rely on you. And I know that you want to come in and do a work here.

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It's so true. And I think humility is something that in our culture, gosh, it's just not celebrated. Is it like it. Or there's like. I mean, there's this new thing like, sorry, not sorry. Like, not like you're humbling yourself enough to say you're sorry. But then you're like, I'm not really sorry. And I know it's kind of done in jest.

Yeah.

But that's. That's really popular. I mean, there's been songs about it. There's all kinds of memes about it. And again, I mean, I get it. Like, I'm a jokester too. I. I mean, I. I'm on TikTok too. I see all the funny things. I follow it. But really, if we're at the heart of it, really believing that we don't have to be humble and that humility shows weakness. We're missing it as Christians because humility is a huge part of the Christian walk. This is one of many, many verses that talks about humility. And who are we first humble before it's God. You know, we have to humble ourselves before our Lord and Savior, the one who created us. And it starts with surrender. You know, in order to fully be humble, we are really laying down our own plans and saying, God, I surrender my own plans to yours. I surrender my life to you. I surrender my marriage to you. I surrender my spouse to you. Because I think a lot of times we'll humble ourselves, you know, maybe before God, but we won't. We won't be humble towards our spouse, you know, and that's why we tell you guys all the time on the Naked Marriage podcast and even in any message we're doing, if we talk about prayer, we dare you to pray. If you have not been praying with your spouse, we're like, we double dog dare you to pray.

The game changer.

And if you don't finish that prayer and have a little bit of change in your heart, then were you really praying? Because I'm telling you, you can't leave. You can't leave unchanged. Because. And we've tried this. I mean, you know, we. We both are strong. We have strong and opinions and things. And I'm telling you, if you just pray with each other, even individually, God humbles you in that moment because you are humbling yourselves before God. But in marriage, I feel like when we pray together, we're humbling ourselves before God and each other. And we're saying, I am laying down whatever agenda I had to just for a moment, spend time with God and not feel like I'm pushing something on you. I'm humbling myself before you. I'm not thinking I'm better than you. I'm not thinking my plans are better than yours, but I'm humbling myself. And what, what we see happen in that is he gives, you know, God gives us what the Bible refers to as a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone. Because what we see a lot of times when couples are really in just a hard part of their marriage, they have what a lot of psychologists and people who are kind of in the marriage space, even in the secular marriage space, they call this contempt. You end up having contempt for each other. And that's basically what the Bible calls a hardened heart. Meaning, like, no matter what your spouse says to you, they could even have best, you know, intentions for your marriage, but it lands on you like nails to a chalkboard because you've already decided in your mind and heart that they're wrong, that they don't love you anymore, that you don't love them anymore. And we don't want to get there, guys. We don't want to get there. And maybe you're already there. Like maybe you. Neither one of you has been humble towards the Lord or each other in years. And I just want today to be the last day of your hard and heart. I want today to be a day where you both humble yourselves before the Lord and each other. And you pray like you've never prayed before and say, God, first of all, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I've been trying to do this my own way. I'm sorry for the hard things that I've said to my spouse. I'm sorry for any damage that I've done. Lord, help me to have a heart of flesh. And I just humble myself before you, Lord, and I ask that you would come into my marriage. You know, we've kind of had you outside of our marriage and we just ask that you are the center of our marriage and that we can start to rebuild again. Because when you've been in that kind of contempt hardened heart state for so long, it's hard. It's hard to get back what was lost. But I do believe it's possible. I've seen that it's possible. But it starts with humility. You have to have humility before the healing comes.

Yeah, you do. You have to start with humility. When you start with humility, then where you end is always going to be someplace much healthier than it would have been. And even if you feel like I don't know how to pray, you know, start with praying, God, I don't know how to pray.

Yeah, I don't even have the words.

Lord, Lord, I don't have the words. Like, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say to my spouse. I don't know what to say, God to you and start with that. And God gives us the very thing that we need. There's a story in the New Testament where this guy asked Jesus, hey, Jesus, can you heal my kid? And Jesus said, do you believe I can heal? And the guy said, I believe. Help me overcome my unbelief, right? He's like saying, I'm choosing to believe, but there's a little part of me. But God, when we come to him humbly, he gives us the very thing we need. He gives us the faith that we need. He gives us the words that we need. This Holy Spirit intercedes for us. The Bible says if we just come with that posture of humility, God, just help me, just help me. And maybe that you start with that a simple God help me. And he will. He will meet you right where you are. So thankful for the faithfulness of our God, our Father, who's always there, always ready to help in our time of need. Guys, thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for completing week two. We're having a ball with this summer of scripture. We hope you're enjoying it, too. Write us in and let you know. Let us know, like, how, how you're enjoying this. What's standing out to you, what's helped you. We love your reviews, we love getting your messages. We love your on Instagram. You can find us at Dave and AshleyWillis. Send us a message there. We'd love hearing from you guys. And we just hope that God's word is encouraging you as much as it's encouraging us. We'll see you tomorrow for day 15.