Did you know that self-care protects Christian intimacy in marriage? Many people ignore intimacy in their marriages; they certainly don’t guard it and haven’t considered the self-care intimacy relationship. But here’s what you should know: Self-care for the sake of intimacy improves intimacy.
Self-care for the sake of intimacy in marriage may also help you obey the Lord in two interesting ways—although the latter feeds into the former.
- First, it helps you follow Paul’s advice in 1 Corinthians 7:3-5. Take care of the body of marriage to give the enemy fewer opportunities for attack.
- Second, it helps you follow Paul’s instructions in Ephesians 5:21-30. Submit to the body of marriage. And submit YOUR body to each other to keep your mind, body, and soul in a place to be obedient for 1 Cor 7:3-5.
Self-care protects intimacy in marriage because it aligns with these scripture instructions and can improve intimacy. Caring for our bodies seems like a far-off requirement when we’re young. It seems like a low priority with our busy schedules. But that’s such a trick—that’s the most critical time for self-care! So, let’s dig into this!
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How It Started
My husband and I have been married for 24 years. When we got married, we were going to night school.
I was 30 years old, and my husband was 37, so we (okay, more me than we) were also fast-tracking that early period of marriage so we could grow our family.
To clarify, we worked full-time, attended night school part-time, and tried to grow our family while learning how to be married.
Which means neither of us made time to eat right. We weren’t getting enough sleep, so we drank a lot of caffeine and ate a lot of processed foods (sugar).
Ironically, I had a job educating people about how to change their lifestyles. But behind the scenes, I lived off Diet Coke and Peanut M&M’s.
We were too tired to exercise, socialize with friends, attend small groups, or relax.
Sounds like the perfect time to work on getting pregnant, right?
We lived this way for over five years. I felt like we were unhealthy physically, barely hanging on to each other emotionally, and unconnected spiritually.
Although we weren’t discussing divorce, we weren’t living a happy and thriving life.
I struggled a lot emotionally with this.
First, I was stressed about my age, my infertility, and the timing of everything. I kept searching for the ‘thing’ to make my dream of starting a family come true. I didn’t have time to take better care of myself and wasn’t motivated to improve my health.
To be honest, all I was focused on was getting pregnant. I wasn’t focused on our marriage any.
What Changed
Then, one night, I had a moment with the Lord, and He helped me see why my desire to grow our family while burning the candle at both ends and ignoring the Lord was destroying my marriage.
I also felt a deep conviction about my self-care.
In one fleeting moment, with the help of the Lord, of course, I gave up my self-centered focus on a baby. Through a big scary leap of energized faith, I was led to focus on taking better care of myself and serving my husband.
This was the first time I felt like I truly connected with Jesus-not just to go to Him in prayer-but as my savior who loved me so much that He died for my sins and wanted the best for me.
I remember telling the Lord I didn’t see how this would work and was scared to give up after ‘trying’ for so long.
But I felt an odd sense of peace and a new passion for my husband.
I also had a new passion for taking care of myself.
But having a family was still everything to me. I couldn’t see how letting go would help, but it did.
Amazingly, when I started serving my husband, he started serving me. That was the turning point in our marriage’s experience of intimacy.
It was also the time when I started digging into scripture.
And then, I became pregnant.
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What Had to Change Next
Later, after my daughter came, we struggled with time for intimacy again as we dealt with her colic. We had to readapt.
But we followed the Lord’s marriage instructions because we had gone through it before and were in the Word.
This investment in our intimacy paid off, and it is still paying off today.
Our ‘action’ was a spiritual commitment to better care for ourselves and our marriage.
We became more committed to regular church attendance as a couple. We started eating a little bit healthier, getting a little more sleep, and getting outside more (we liked to hike). Then, we focused on improving our marriage by taking better care of ourselves so that we could better serve each other.
We put each other’s needs ahead of our own.
As a Christian, your self-care protects Christian intimacy. I want you to be in a place where, no matter what barriers interfere with intimacy in your marriage, you have a plan—a plan that is focused on the Lord and your marriage.
I want you to be in a place where your intimacy, with a little patience and work, not only survives but thrives through the seasons of change.
Scripture – Self-Care Protects Christian Intimacy
Now, let’s examine this scripture to learn how spiritual commitment to caring for one’s body can positively impact intimacy in marriage.
Let’s begin with some scripture and discuss the Biblical reasons why we should invest time and energy into our self-care.
The first verse is a warning that Paul shares about the risk of temptations we all experience in marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:3-5 reads, 3 “The husband should fulfill his wife’s sexual needs, and the wife should fulfill her husband’s needs. 4 The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband gives authority over his body to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other of sexual relations, unless you both agree to refrain from sexual intimacy for a limited time so you can give yourselves more completely to prayer. Afterward, you should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt you because of your lack of self-control.” (NLT).
The NLT uses ‘fulfill his wife’s sexual needs,’ the NIV version uses the words ‘fulfill his marital duty’, and other versions are more explicit: the ESV uses ‘give to his wife her conjugal rights’.
Paul wants us to understand or be fully aware of the fact that Satan knows EXACTLY where we are weak. Satan is waiting to attack the intimacy in our marriage if these needs are not met. We are to give our spouses our bodies to satisfy their intimacy needs.
When both spouses are obedient, it helps us overcome or prevent the temptation to sin in our marriage.
Paul is saying BE ON GUARD!
Protect your marriage’s intimacy actively. Make a plan, a commitment, and follow through on it.
I think we’ve all heard that. But what does that look like in real life? Are there instructions? Is there a process to live it out? Well, if you look at the world, you’ll get a lot of suggestions. Most are not really healthy or helpful for protecting the intimacy of marriage.
If you look back into scripture, you’ll find the instructions.
How to Live It Out
The verse above ended with the phrase, “because of your lack of self-control”.
Although that’s not overly encouraging, it’s essential to know that self-control doesn’t come from worldly balance and moderation – it comes through the Holy Spirit when you allow God to control your life. And He tells us EXACTLY WHY AND HOW TO DO IT!
This time, we will go to Ephesians 5:21-30. These verses set the stage for building our strategic plan.
“21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. 24 As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.[a] 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body. (NLT).
Sacrificial Self-care
God uses these verses to show husbands and wives how to submit to their spouses and marriage sacrificially, as Christ did to the church.
Christ gave 100% sacrificially to the Church.
Paul is telling us how to serve each other through a spiritual commitment where we honor the Lord to protect and invest in our marriage.
The main point is sacrifice, as Jesus did. That means not at 50%, not at 25%.
100%.
He’s saying to give up control of yourself in everything.
Be present for the sake of the marriage.
I see these verses as instructions that tell us the depth of how we should be taking care of our marriage. Per Scripture, if we want to do this right, we must do so sacrificially.
That begs the question we must ask ourselves, “Am I feeding and caring for my marriage as Christ did for the church?”
So, another way to look at it may be how to care for ourselves – our minds, bodies,
Therefore, we need to ask that question with consideration for both. “Am I feeding and caring for the marriage body and my body as Christ did for the church?”
We all know that intimacy is a critically important part of marriage.
But it’s more than sex. It’s having a connection.
It’s trust.
I believe Paul gave this advice because he knew how intimacy would be affected when we became tired and distracted and weren’t intentional with our self-care for our marriage.
Now, note I didn’t say if. I said when.
It often happens to all of us.
Staying Present in Marriage
These distractions are going to happen. Stay present in your marriage by applying these two actions.
- Sacrificial care for your marriage
- Sacrificial care for your bodies
When these 2 actions are combined, they support the growth of intimacy in your marriage not just now but also serve as an investment in intimacy in the future.
In closing, knowing why and how self-care protects Christian intimacy is important.
The enemy is working hard to find reasons for you to focus on anything except your marriage. I bet you can think of two or three distractions you’re dealing with now! Paul knew the enemy would attack if intimacy were not protected in your marriage.
Do not let down your guard. Make a spiritual commitment to take better care of yourselves to help you obey the Lord and actively live out 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 and Ephesians 5:21-30.
You’ll be amazed by the results!
Don’t forget your FREE Self-care Starter Guide! Get it HERE.
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Originally posted January 11, 2019
Be sure to grab your FREE Self-care Starter Guide! Lisa Kimrey is a 33-year veteran registered nurse (RN), speaker, and author of the Bible study, The Self-care Impact: Motivation and Inspiration for Wellness. At Mylifenurse, Lisa combines her nursing expertise with Scripture-based encouragement to show readers who serve and care for others how to begin and maintain their self-care journey – without feeling guilty or overwhelmed – to feel happy, healthy, and rejuvenated.