Life's Trade-Offs - Inspired Marriage

Everything in life involves trade-offs. It doesn’t matter how you live your life, you will have trade-offs. Some of them will be easy and some will be hard like for instance, do you trade quality of life for time with family? To me this is an easy one, family first but to most people that is a trade-off they aren’t willing to accept.

This blog entry isn’t about what you should do because that’s between you, your family and God. This is to show you that we all make trade-offs and sometimes these could be life’s biggest decisions.

People also try to do it all but all this does is destroys everything because in reality, we can’t do it all. We have to make choices and those choices will over time make us, whether good or bad.

As you are growing up, you trade doing the wrong things for doing the right things so that your parents give you a little freedom. Every person who was a child completely understands this.

As we get older, we trade living under our parents roof for moving out so that we can have our freedom but with that also comes responsibility. Some kids would rather stay at their parents house but for the most part this is an acceptable trade-off since it comes with freedom. Freedom is the real trade-off that we deal with all through life.

For instance, when we marry, we trade our single life (Our freedom) for something that is supposed to be magical. For some of us it is very magical but for some it is a nightmare so be careful with this trade-off. We trade making every decision based on self for looking at every decision based on both spouses or at least we are supposed to.

Another big trade off is the career we choose. This is a huge one especially if you have a family. Do you work 60+ hours a week in order to provide the best money can buy or do you work 40 hours a week and live modest so that you can spend quality and quantity time with your family? This is one that people fight with all the time. It is not an easy decision but it is a trade-off. The key is finding the balance that works for your family. Either your family or your career loses. You cant do both at the highest levels without one suffering but its your choice which one suffers.

Another trade-off is starting a family. I can tell you that having a baby is a HUGE responsibility. It is very tough at the beginning especially since you are the baby’s full support. The baby is fully dependent on you. It is many sleepless nights so you are giving up more freedom in order to create a legacy. To us this trade-off is so worth it because having Lil Chris has been so awesome!

Where will you live? Close to your family, your spouses family or somewhere in between? This is another difficult trade-off that many things need to be looked at. You may love where you live but if the area is beat up bad because of the economy and it looks like nothing is changing for many years then you may have to consider moving to another city. Yes this is tough too but its a decision that only you, your spouse and God can make.

Now lets get to the biggest trade-off you will ever make in my opinion. When you come to Christ, you are giving up your old self, your old past, and your old behaviors for a new you. You will be creating a new set of behaviors through Christ. There will be things that you did in the past that just don’t interest you anymore. You are saying goodbye to your old life and hello to your new life.

Yes this too is a trade-off but one worth trading. A life of bondage to a life of freedom. Only Christ can free you from your past. Only Christ can free you from your addictions. Only Christ can set you free from everything that holds you back.

When you come to Christ, you are saying that I trust you with my life. I know I won’t be perfect but I trust you will guide me. I may not know where you are leading me at times but I will trust that you will not lead me wrong.

When you have that kind of trust in God, there is no place that God is not willing to take you. God will take you to places that you can only dream of. God will take you as you are but mold you into what you will become tomorrow. Allow God to do this in and through you so that your test in life will ultimately become your testimony.

Are you ready to change your life? Then ask Christ to come into your life and transform you into the person he wants you to become. Ask God to take you to places you have never been so that he can accomplish in and through you only what he can do!

Also ask God to give you the wisdom to make the right choices with the trade-offs of life. This is an important issue that you want to follow where God is leading you not just where you want to go.

There are many other trade-offs that I could mention here but you get the picture. Remember without God we are NOTHING but with God we can be EVERYTHING God created us to be!

Living an Inspired Marriage!

Chris Benton

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Chris Benton

I am co-founder of Inspired Marriage. I went through 19 years of addictions until God healed me Dec 26th, 2007. The first 5 years of our marriage was hell because of my addictions. With Sandy's patience, I was able to allow God to work in me and we have been growing spiritually together ever since! Oct 5th, 2023 was 21 years of marriage and it's been an inspired one!