Don't Buy Into the Lie

Did you know that society and the way we are told to ‘live’ is generally a lie? Society has taught us a bunch of very conflicting and skewed messages.

One of these is that love should be easy and you shouldn’t have to work for it. This is probably this biggest lie the devil has introduced into our society and into marriages. People tend to get married after knowing each other about five minutes (check almost every celebrity marriage) then they discover marriage really isn’t all about unicorns and rainbows.

In order to find out what makes a Christian marriage last, I asked Christian couples I know four questions. These were not designed to trap them in anything or make them say something they do not mean, but to find out, through a variety of years married, what they say is ‘key’ to keeping it together.

Those questions are:

1.      In your opinion, what does it take to make a marriage last?

2.      What have you discovered throughout your marriage that you wished you knew on your  wedding day?

3.      What are the top three things you would like to tell any couple thinking about marriage?

4.      Do you agree with this saying: marriage is about two people who want to work to be together?

Almost all of them, without fail, said God MUST be in the relationship from the start. Without a partner relationship based on individual relationships with Christ, it is difficult to imagine success. One person put it perfectly:

To experience the fullness of marriage and the wonder that it truly is, your heart must be regenerate and you have to be growing together as you, first and foremost, grow and mature in your faith.

I seriously, completely, totally love that statement.

I’ve heard this illustration before, and think it is vital to any relationship destined for marriage:

The idea is that the closer the individual husband and wife grow in their relationships to God, the closer they grow to each other. How beautiful is that?

Another common theme that came up is the amount of work it takes to make a relationship last. One person cannot sit around and eat bonbons all day while the other does all of the work. Okay, so maybe it is not bonbons, but other things that take away from the amount of time spent together as a couple and also with children (whether you have them already or not). I’ll admit, sometimes the husband/wife relationship is NOT 50/50. Sometimes it is 90/10. Sometimes 30/70. It is ALWAYS give and take, no matter what. The thing about it is, the giver and the taker should never be the same person all the time.

A third theme is humility. One person said patience, honesty, love and humility. I personally think those all tie together, because if you are being honest with your spouse, then you love them and are willing to exhibit (learn???) patience as you learn each other’s living habits. Humility comes into that with admitting when you are wrong, asking for forgiveness and giving in (not always getting your way) to your spouse. In the responses, it was said that marriage is “a journey to learn from and live together.”  I couldn’t agree more. I do want to caveat that ‘giving in’ to your spouse part with the fact that it should NEVER be one person always giving in to the other. This creates a manipulative relationship, which will implode at some point.

A fourth theme… romance. Now, I really like this one J I’m a complete romantic at heart and love the idea of being romanced until the day I die by my spouse. I have a sweet picture of my grandparents holding hands at their 50^th Wedding Anniversary party and just love it. I want that to be me and my spouse someday… Several of the responses were great, but my favorite is this:

"…if you really want a successful marriage, you need to approach every day as if you're still trying to win your spouse. We tend to take all the romance and service out once we get married and we tend to start taking one another for granted. The easiest way to be successful is constantly putting our spouse first."

I think this is so true. Forgetting why we fell for that person, putting kids before the spouse to the point where you don’t know your spouse anymore and ignoring the reasons why you married him/her in the first place can kill a relationship.

I want to point out one response I got. I wrote about it earlier this year and got a lot of flack from one person who had his interpretation of the passage a little off kilter. This is the response to the first question:

“I also believe that a proper understanding of Ephesians 5: 21-33 is foundational to a successful Christian marriage. There has to be an understanding on husband's and wife's parts that submission unto God-ordained authorities is commanded of every Christian (v. 21)--that the "mutual submission" idea that develops from a surface-level reading of that passage is not a call for husbands to submit to wives, parents to children, or masters to servants. Rather it is a call for us to submit to Christ and reverence His headship over all things and let that fear and wonder govern how we relate with others. That being said, the wife must understand that it is her Biblical mandate to submit to her husband--understanding that "submissive" does not mean "subservient." That she is to look to her husband the same way the Church is to look to Her Lord. Husbands aren't told to submit in return; their command is to love their wives exactly as Christ loves His Bride. Our call is to do everything we can to see to her spiritual well-being, basing it all on the Word of God (requiring the opening of said Word on more occasions than Sundays) reading and teaching The Word so that her spirit / faith is well-tended. Our call is to lay every self-serving desire or perceived need aside for her sake, that she might live...that she might grow in holiness (remembering that our ultimate goal is to be like Christ, whether we're married or not). Everything that the husband is should be devoted to loving sacrificially and leading spiritually his wife. If more couples entered into marriage with a better understanding of this passage, I believe many more marriages would start on better footing. Of course, if more seasoned couples would gain better understanding of Ephesians 5-6, a lot of things would change for the better.”

While these thoughts are not reflective of all marriages around the world, they are from people I know trust God and put total faith in Him to direct their lives.

This is where I am right now… trusting God, remaining content where I am and faithful to His Will for my life, whatever that may be, as painful as it can be. Trusting.