Seven Foxes Devouring Your Marriage
Too often in our 14-year Christian counseling practice and now in our sexual intimacy ministry, we’ve witnessed subtle obstacles that devour and ultimately destroy marriages. Many couples become “roommates’ without romance or intimacy. Others actually get a “divorce” and then repeat it all over again. There are at least 7 foxes or obstacles that will certainly devour your marriage or relationship.
What are the Seven Foxes Devouring Your Marriage?
The seven foxes or obstacles trying to devour your marriage are:
- temptation/sin leading to addictions, or any form of idolatry (anything you put before God and your one-flesh marriage),
- lack of spiritual intimacy (the couple doesn’t share what the Lord is doing in their own life, nor do they pray together, and they don’t have a spiritual community),
- busyness (distractions or wrong focus) or too busy to put God and marriage first,
- fear of intimacy (which leads to sexual repression or acting out),
- coping mechanisms (striving in our own strength apart from God),
- a couple’s priorities being out of balance (family, child, work centered-marriages) rather than intimacy-centered marriage with God and each other.
- stress, fatigue (lack of physical health).
Foxes In the Vineyard! OH NO!
We call the Seven Foxes Devouring Your Marriage silent killers. The term foxes come from the Song of Solomon. They are insidious and quietly on the prowl, and they would like nothing better than to stop your vineyard (marriage) from blossoming and thriving!
When we lived in Colorado Springs we had a backyard farm with 7 chickens, 2 geese, 1 dog, and a garden. We had barns for the chickens and geese, our neighbors did not.
One night, when they were gone, we heard a horrible ruckus next door. The geese were sounding the alarm. By the time we found out what happened the damage was done. We saw the culprit in the far corner of the yard, a fox, a cute little fox sitting patiently by the fence.
It had decapitated 5 chickens and was just waiting for us to leave before it finished the massacre and drug them off, one by one to its den. Who would’ve known how destructive that little, bushy-tailed, rascal could be?
How to catch the Seven Foxes Devouring Your Marriage
FOX #1
Fox # 1 is temptation leading to sin. Sin often leads to addictions. The greatest sin is in the form of idolatry. (anything you put before God and your one-flesh marriage),
It All Started In The Garden Of Eden
Married, engaged, or single, we’re all in need of sexual redemption. Foxes are not only our busyness, distractions, coping mechanisms, addictions, or any form of idolatry that you put before God and your one-flesh marriage but also reveal that we all have an enemy.
Back in the Garden of Eden, before Adam and Eve ate the apple (forbidden fruit), they experienced a physical, emotional, and spiritual togetherness that no other human can even fathom. They had the best sex in the history of the world!
But when sin and shame entered the picture, innocence was lost. The enemy had deceived them. Suddenly ashamed of their physical nakedness, Adam and Eve donned fig leaves.
Fig Leaves On As a Result of Shame
That same shame also impacted their willingness to be emotionally and spiritually naked, with each other and with God, and the human race has struggled with physical, emotional, and spiritual intimacy ever since.
In fact, most people have a fear of real intimacy. We all question “am I enough?” “do I have what it takes?” “am I worthy to be pursued and fought for?” Intimacy with God, our spouse, or future spouse is not easy, it takes intention, commitment, and effort on your part.
What if you could experience unfettered intimacy, pleasure, and connection in your marriage without shame?
Well, You Can!
Sign Up for A FREE WEEK of our Online Course with Intimacy Experiences you can do with your Spouse or Fiancé
FOX #2
Fox #2 involves developing a spiritual intimacy between you. First and foremost spiritual intimacy is perhaps the most difficult to develop because it involves risk and vulnerability with your spouse about your relationship with the Lord.
You need to have an intimate relationship with the Lord before you can share that part of yourself with your spouse. Not just know about Him or know His Word, but to actually experience Him speaking into your life and heart. And like we said before, the first thing to go when you’re too busy is your intimacy with the Lord. Instead of pressuring yourself to have that quiet time with the Lord why don’t you invite Him into the daily moments of your life?
You might find this rather quirky but once I put an app on my phone to remind myself to drink 8 glasses of water a day and it would prompt me throughout the day that I needed to drink up. Well, I thought to myself, why not also use the app to drink from the living water too. So I’d just have a communing moment with the Lord while I drank my water. Now it’s just a habit and I talk to the Lord throughout the day, AND I drink 8 glasses of water too! LOL!
Some other things you can try are to pray together before bed or when you start your day. Ask each other how your heart is doing, and what you’re thankful for. Then pray for one another. At lunchtime, Janean and I share about what the Lord is saying to us.
Ask each other spiritual questions on your date night as you’re out to dinner. Try praying before you make love and ask the Lord to bless your time together. Spiritual intimacy is easy to develop if you think about it as simple ways that you can connect with your spouse on a spiritual level on a daily basis.
Are you engaged or do you know someone who is getting married? Whether this couple is young or old, virgins or not the Divine Desire – Engaged Edition of our online video course would be a great gift to help prepare them for a lifetime of amazing lovemaking. After all, no one gets married to be celibate, do they? This is the most important wedding preparations they can do.
The Divine Desire Engaged premarital online course will give you and your fiancé a God Honoring Foundation
to a Life-long Marriage of Intimacy and Passion!
FOX #3
Fox # 3 is being too busy. Busyness is the number 1 problem that most marriages face. The truth is that you will spend your time doing the things you’re most successful at. Where you won’t have to be intimate or be vulnerable. After all, the possibility is much higher to fail in this area than in other areas of your life.
Which is why most couples are two ships passing in the night. But you were created for intimacy. To be intimate with God, then your spouse, then your family and then everyone else. So if avoidance is happening you might want to be honest about why you are putting everything else first before God and your spouse.
We highly suggest you consider our Romance Calendar. This is a way that you plan to intentionally connect with your spouse daily, weekly and quarterly. There’s a whole week devoted to it in both our engaged and married editions of our Divine Desire online video course. Or a much more affordable option could be the Romance Calendar.
Fox #4
Fox # 4 is having sexual fears of intimacy. Fears of intimacy would be sexual repression or sexually acting out with no commitment. In fact, most people have a fear of real intimacy.
We all question “am I enough?” “do I have what it takes?” “am I worthy to be pursued and fought for?” Intimacy with God, our spouse, or future spouse is not easy. Intimacy takes intention, commitment, and effort on both your parts. God Rescues Marriages!
We all fear intimacy. It’s been happening since The Fall of Adam and Eve. When God found Adam after he had sinned Adam told God the reason why, “I was afraid because I was naked (vulnerable), so I hid.” You and I have been finding ways to hide ever since. We’re very creative in the ways we put on our fig leaves: work, ministry, exercise, overeating, addictions, etc. You name it and humans have done it!
So the question is how are these fig leaves affecting you and your spouse? If you are actively avoiding your spouse with busyness, you might be struggling with an addiction called “Intimacy Anorexia” (Doug Weiss, Ph.D.), which means you need help.
An intimate relationship with God is the only way to be free from any addiction. My online video course “Spirituality and Sexuality” will help you if you are struggling with intimacy avoidance or any other addiction.
Let the Christian Intimacy Experts help!
The fact is, you’re probably not a virgin, and you’re sexually active inside or outside of marriage. You might even be married but celibate, living in a passionless marriage (and perhaps very unhappily so!).
You might have the perfect marriage but just want a little more romance, passion, and commitment to an intimate one-flesh relationship. Whatever your story, God wants to bring healing and redemption to your sexuality. Sexual fears could possibly need professional help.
What if you could rediscover God’s original intentions for your sexuality and/or your marriage?
The Divine Desire Married protocol will put you on a journey back
to an intimate and life-giving marriage.
God Rescues Marriages – Let the Christian Intimacy Experts help!
The fact is, you’re probably not a virgin, and you’re sexually active inside or outside of marriage. You might even be married but celibate, living in a passionless marriage (and perhaps very unhappily so!). You might have the perfect marriage but just want a little more romance, passion, and commitment to an intimate one-flesh relationship. Whatever your story, God wants to bring healing and redemption to your sexuality.
Fox #5
Fox # 5 is having coping mechanisms where we strive to deal with our pain, trauma, or brokenness in our own strength apart from God. At our initial counseling, ministry or spiritual direction appointments, we close the session by asking our prospective clients to read Jeremiah 2:13 aloud.
For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
We explain that people in crisis usually do one of two things: they run to God, or they run to their strategies or coping mechanisms apart from God. Fortunately, our wisdom and ideas never yield the full and satiated life we’re longing for. If they did, then who would need Jesus (Gal 2:21)? God calls these “broken cisterns” and evil because they open the door to the enemies’ lies.
The answer is to learn to run to God with our pain. We have written a book called God’s Intimacy Prayer to help people be intimate with God and ultimately your spouse.
fox #6
Fox # 6 is wrong priorities or where a couple’s priorities are out of balance. They have put other things ahead of being intimate in their marriage. They have the wrong priorities! Usually, they put family, children, ministry, working out, friends rather than an intimacy-centered marriage with God and each other.
So, Are You Willing to Practice Being Intimate?
We will use the Song of Solomon Libretto to do an Intimacy Experience!
Say to your wife/fiancé right now,
Get up, my darling; the time is right, and we’re ready! Let’s go on a journey together, my beautiful one, and discover a whole new world of intimacy—emotionally, physically, and spiritually.”
Say to your husband/fiancé right now,
Come, my lover, let’s go up and spend the night in the high places, and there we’ll experience old and new ways of being intimate with the Lord and each other. There I will give you my love.”
Jesus says,
Are you tired? Worn out? Come to Me. Get-away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of intimacy. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. You’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
You both say,
Take me away with you, let’s run off together and catch the little foxes that have crept in and snatched our intimate desire and passion.”
If you love doing this intimacy experience, imagine having 72 of them to do with your spouse that can be done in the privacy of your own home over a 6 month period of time with our Divine Desire Foundational Married Edition and our Divine Desire Advanced Married Edition. We also have a 3-month protocol for engaged couples.
Your Responses Tell a Story
- How did that go?
- Are you and your spouse/fiancé on the same page?
- Was it a little uncomfortable?
- Was it challenging but yet nice to go deeper?
Do you want a step-by-step guide to an intimate marriage God’s way? This is what we have offered couples for the last 14 years in our private counseling practice. Now, we offer it to you in the privacy of your own home. Start the incredible journey to recapturing or igniting God’s original intent for love, marriage, and sex.
Can You Imagine?
Chances are, you’ve been taught to put God first, your spouse second, your children third and everything else after that. As we have seen, too often, everything else comes first, and our intimacy with the Lord and our spouses are the first to go.
Despite our desires and best efforts to give our lovers something more than the fumes at the end of our day (or nothing at all), we still remain busy, constantly wired to technology, and running to the little gods that we think will fulfill us.
Can you imagine discovering a rhythm of living that will help you to be intentionally passionate with both your heavenly and earthly lover? How about being hopeful that you can have a sustainable, passionate, and life-giving intimacy? Jesus is offering you a way back to freedom and the abundant intimate life He talked about with Him and your spouse/fiancé.
Who knows after devoted time with Jesus and each other
everything else just might fall into place too!
FOX #7
Fox # 7 is the fatigue of having a stressful marriage. One way to relieve stress is to connect often with your spouse and God. So what are some easy ways to connect with your spouse? These 5 Intimacy Experiences are fun, effective, and romantic ways to connect to your spouse!
- Blog on Hugging till relaxed. CLICK HERE
- Blog on Passionate kissing. CLICK HERE
- Blog on Listening to heartbeats. CLICK HERE
- Blog on Spoon Breathing. CLICK HERE
- Blog on Sensual Head Caress CLICK HERE
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