75 SHARE TRANSPARENTLY TO ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR
EXCUSES

“I never know what you really mean,” protested a frustrated spouse. Vague reassurances never pay the bills. Confusing excuses never make up for deep hurts. It’s time to come clean with one another in your marriage.

So how do you become transparent when it’s so risky? If we are too open, then another person has all “the goods” on us. They know our secrets and our deepest needs. They can hurt or betray us at any time. That’s the risk of being transparent.

But the benefits of transparency far outweigh the risks. When we are open and speak the truth in love, then we grow deeper in our love and intimacy with one another. Some people use openness as an excuse for cruelty. This isn’t what we mean.

Openness allows for an intimacy that says, “Into me see.” See my strengths and my weaknesses. See my dreams and my nightmares. See my hope and my despair. Know me. Help me carry this burden to Christ.

The person besides God with whom we can become truly transparent is our mate. Without transparency, we miss the close friendship that every marriage needs. Partners work together, but mates are more than partners. In marriage we are one in Christ.

Try this: Spend time weekly sharing your goals, aspirations, dreams, hopes and also your failures, sins, mistakes and feelings of inadequacy. Encourage one another.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Gal. 6:2