Ashley and Dave Willis read the priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26 and reflect on how God's blessing can sustain a marriage through struggles. After 22 years together, they encourage seeing blessings alongside hardship and loving a spouse even when it feels impossible.
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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. Hey, there. Hello there. Welcome back to Summer of Scripture. We are on day four. We're in the book of Numbers, chapter six, verses 24 through 26. And it says this. May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show his favor. Show you his favor and give you his peace. And you guys may be really familiar with this because in 2020, Carrie Jobe and Cody Carnes had a very famous worship song where they literally sang this verse by verse, and it just. It's one of my favorites.
The Blessing.
The Blessing. Yeah.
And it is. It's just a beautiful blessing from scripture, and it's just so uplifting to know that God wants to bless you.
Yes.
That way. He wants to bless your marriage, he wants to bless your life. And. Yeah. There's so much encouragement in that. And it is a beautiful song as well. So look it up if you haven't heard it.
Yeah. And I think that, you know, I think sometimes, especially when we're in the midst of trials in marriage, we forget that God is a God of blessing, that he really does want to bless our lives individually, but also collectively, and that there are good things in store for us. But that doesn't mean that life isn't without struggles. I mean, we're gonna have trouble in this world. Jesus himself said that, and he lived it. He experienced it. Like we have a God who sent his son to go through the human experience. So he is not a distant God. He knows we have trials. He knows how much we need a blessing. We need something good to look forward to, to hold onto. And I think sometime misunderstand how the blessings of the Lord work. I think sometimes we think, well, I'm in a season that is blessed, or I'm in a. You know, maybe once I get through this hard season, then I'll have a blessing. But what we found kind of in our life, you know, we're in our 40s now. We've been married 22 years. We found that there's usually blessings, you know, alongside trials, like it's not all bad or it's not all good. Wouldn't you say so, sweetie?
Well, and even in the trials, you're blessed. You know, being in a trial doesn't mean you're not blessed. I mean, Jesus said, in this life you will have trouble. But take heart, I've overcome the world. Never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you, you. And so blessing can come even in the midst of the most difficult things you're going through. I think about Jesus earthly parents, Joseph and Mary, who were in the center of God's will. I mean, doing one of the most important things imaginable, carrying the Son of God, getting ready to give birth to the Son of God, raising him. But their life was marked with all this struggle. You know, they were ostracized by their family. They're being run out of their country by a tyrant king. They're poor, they're having to live as refugees in Egypt. They're alone. So much difficulty going on. And yet Mary treasured up these moments in her heart. They realized the blessing they had because Christ was with them. And for you and me, there's such blessing in whatever you're facing, whatever hardship, whatever health scare, whatever financial issue, whatever you're facing, Christ is with us like Jesus is with us in the midst of this. And we're blessed. We're blessed. These struggles are temporary and the joys we're going to have with God will be eternal. And I think that in receiving the blessings of God, it means having that perspective, that eternal perspective, to know that I'm blessed because God is with me. He is for me. And he's got a great plan for my future and for my eternity. And I'm going to hold onto that, especially on the hard days. The hard days doesn't mean that God is distant. No, he is with us in our struggles. He is close to the brokenhearted, the Bible says. So I'm going to lean into him and I'm going to claim victory even in the midst of this struggle, because God's already won the victory. This struggle is gonna pass and we're gonna be with him celebrating forever. And I wanna hold tight to that assurance.
Preach it, sweetie. That was so good. I love it. And you know, as you were saying that, I thought about another song I thought about. And you guys. It's just an earworm. You know, one of those songs you can't get out of your mind, which is so good, by the band Cain, which is A sibling group that sings Christian songs. And there's a song called. I think it's called I'm so Blessed, but it goes, on my worst day, I'm a child of God. On my best day, I'm a child of. Every day is a good day, and you're the reason why. And I love that because it's saying, you know, every day I'm a child of God, Hallelujah and hallelujah. I love it. And it's so good. Like, I didn't even do the song justice. So go listen to it.
Oh, you did.
But it's, like, so good because it's the truth. It's like, on the good days, I'm still a child of God. On the bad days, I'm a child of God. And every day can be a good day because it's another day that God's given us to live. And I think that sometimes we can say, yeah, okay, for myself, I get it. I'm a child of God. But what about on the days that your spouse is not being that lovable, or you feel like they let you down, or they're just in a really terrible mood or whatever it is we have to see? You know, remember that song? On their worst day, they're a child of God. On their best day, they're a child of God, and Jesus loves them. I'm gonna love them through it. And I'm not saying put your head in the clouds and act like there's no issues. That's not at all what I'm saying. But I do think that we can look for the blessing in the midst of the trial by remembering that even if our spouse does let us down, that they are a flawed human being that is still loved by God even in their worst moment. And even asking God to give us eyes to see the good in our spouse and to see the blessing in our spouse, even on the hard days. And, I mean, we certainly live that. Like. I mean, we can be grouchy. We can be. We can let each other down. I mean, it happens. Every married couple goes through this. No, that's not.
I let her down all the time. I can be. Yeah. Really difficult. But I'm telling you, like, what Ashley was saying is so true. When your spouse is least acting lovable is when they usually need your love the most. And so instead of just treating your spouse the way your spouse treats you, treat your spouse the way God treats you. And how does God treat you? He gives you his best. He gives you his blessing, even when you're being unlovable. He pursues you with love and grace, even when you're running the other way. And we need to do that for one another in marriage. We need to be an extension of God's grace and God's blessing to our spouse. And if you'll go first, if you'll have the courage to be the one to go first, especially in those difficult seasons when you and your spouse might feel like you're butting heads, you could be the one to really change the whole climate in your marriage and invite God to come and be in the center of your marriage and bring his blessing and his peace with you even in the midst of the chaos you might be feeling.
So true. Oh, guys, thank you so much for joining us on day four. We can't wait to be with you on day five when we are going to be in. What book, sweetie?
Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy.
The last of the Pentateuch. You know, for you biblical scholars and just for your regular folks like us, it's the fifth book in the Bible. That's right. And we are going to dive in. And there's a lot in there. In fact, when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness three times, he quoted the Bible back to Satan. It was all out of the book of Deuteronomy. So that's your little preview for tomorrow, and we will see you then.
