Marriage is one of the greatest gifts of God—one that we can spend a lifetime unpacking the rich treasures and wonders. Through marriage, we discover the wonder of grace, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, and love. But anyone who has been married will gently remind that such discoveries take intentionality, persistence and hard work.
My friend, Peter Greer, author of The Danger of Doing Good, is also president and CEO of HOPE International, an organization which specializes in providing microfinance loans that empower people to start their own businesses around the world
While spending time together a few weeks ago, Peter mentioned that he developed his own system to check up his marriage. Not only did he create his own series of questions, but he built a spreadsheet with the results of the data. He tracked how his marriage was doing over the last few years.
I was more than intrigued.
Peter explained that a few years ago he came to a startling realization. Though he regularly monitored indicators on health and welfare programs through his organization, he rarely asked his wife how she was doing or feeling.
He decided to develop a marriage impact assessment—10 questions to determine how his work impacted his family in order to determine how he could better support his wife.
Here are Peter’s 10 Marriage Impact Assessment Questions:
1. Do my actions show you that apart from Jesus Christ, I have no higher love?
2. How well are we serving together?
3. How well am I encouraging your spiritual growth?
4. How well am I maximizing the time we have together?
5. How is our prayer life together?
6. How well am I supporting you to grow in your gifts/skills?
7. Are we discipling our children well together? How convinced are you that parenting is truly a partnership?
8. How well am I caring for your friends?
9. How is our physical expression of our love? [ahem, the language of this question has been edited]
10. What can I do to love you better?
My husband, Leif, and I want to celebrate the wonders of marriage with our lives. We are beginning to ask these questions and wrestle through the answers.
I’d like to invite you to take the initiate that Peter did with his marriage. What questions do you need to be asking yourself and your spouse? What are the great unspokens of your relationship?
Great blog, Margaret! I LOVE these questions. Unfortunately, my husband isn’t walking close to the Lord right now so I will have to change them up a bit for us but still a GREAT reminder! THANKS so much for sharing your heart with us and encouraging/challenging us!
Tara,
I’m offering up a prayer for you husband right now–and for you as you two journey together. And yes, adapt! Adapt! Adapt! the questions. May we all see stronger marriages and learn to live joyfully with our spouses.
Fabulous resource . and to have been written by a man for strengthening his family. Hope floats. 🙂
Shandra,
Amen! Hope floats, indeed!
Thank You Margaret for sharing this wonderful info. and Thank You Peter for creating it and being a great example of investing in our marriage. I will be sharing it with my WOW group and with my hubby tonight. What a fantastic way to head into the new year!
Praying we will all stand wonderstruck by how God moves in our marriages in the coming year. Praying for you and your family, Anissa.
I love this. So good!!! I want to talk through all these questions with my husband. Thank you for the post!
Kirten,
Peter is a genius :).
Would love to read this book
I love this! Marriage is beautiful and a treasure to be guarded, nurtured, and preserved for sure! Can’t wait to talk to my husband about this!
Amanda, how did it go? Praying for you both as you continue on this adventure of marriage!
I had to read the questions three times because it hit me square in the forehead! I know how i would answer these questions if asked and didnt like the answers, so back to my prayer closet i go. On the flip side, i think i know how y husband would answer and to ask them right now may cause more issues in our relationship…pray for us, im walking closer to God but he is not.
Praying for you and your husband, Katrina. May God reveal himself to you in big ways within your marriage.