Marriage God’s Way — A Quick Look

True me:  I’m pretty much a romantic at heart.  Real life?  Love and marriage are not for the faint of heart!  It’s not hard to see nowadays that there’s a real attack on the state of marriage. Celebrities “don’t need a piece of paper to define their relationships” or they jump in and out of marriages in a way that devalues everything that it should represent.  Or we can look around us and see some really jacked up examples of what marriage certainly should NOT be!  So what SHOULD it stand for?  What is the purpose of marriage and what should it look like?  My own humble observations…

Marriage first of all should be a reflection of the relationship between Christ Himself and His bride, the church.    Us, His people, not the building or the institution or organization.  Second, marriage sets the order of a household:  Christ, husband, wife (then children). Ephesians 5:25 gives a clear outline of the way things are supposed to be.  “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is Himself its Savior.  Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, …”  These words, these instructions, have caused MANY a problem because they have been misused and taken SO out of context!  Husbands have used it (and still do!) to try and make their wives do what they want them to do and wives just run from it or straight out rebel!  There is nothing about these words, though, that makes me believe that they are intended to give a man any kind of dominance over his wife.  Read the whole text above and understand the RESPONSIBILITY that a husband has to CARE FOR his wife and to nurture her.  To love a woman in the way that this scripture instructs calls for some level of sacrifice.  Yes, husbands, loving your wife should COST YOU SOMETHING!!!  Something not right with her?  Ask yourself what you have or haven’t done to cause the problem!  Wives, we have our instructions too.  Men thrive when they are respected and made/allowed to feel like men.  This is a BIG challenge area for us “independent women.”  Many of us haven’t grown up with fathers or a strong male influence and what we learn from watching our female-dominated family example is that we “have to take care of ourselves.”  Even though we may not intend to, we send and live out subtle messages that challenge our husbands and undermine them as men because “we have minds of our own” and can make our OWN decisions.  This is all true but a house divided can’t stand.  We as women are very capable and, in many ways, are just as strong as (if not stronger than) a man but there is a place for all of that strength.  God created Eve to be a helper to Adam.  Oh, and if I might digress, I need to offer a little bit of a grammar lesson.  A wife is not a “help meet.”  THERE IS NO SUCH THING!!!  Genesis 2:8 says:  “And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.'”  The word “meet” is an adjective used to describe the kind of help Eve as a woman was meant to be to Adam. The New Living Translation of the scripture says “I will make a helper who is just right for him.”  PLEASE, church people, stop saying “help meet” like it’s one word!!!  (Sorry.  That one really bothers me and I just HAD to get it out of my system!)  Adam and Eve worked side by side running things in the Garden of Eden.  As a matter of fact, they messed things up for themselves when SHE acted independently of him and listened to the lying serpent and, instead of speaking up and challenging the lie, Adam followed HER lead.   The consequence for Adam and Eve’s disobedience was that resulted in permanent disharmony  and we’ve all been fighting ever since!  When both the husband and the wife assume their rightful God-given roles in the relationship, our chances for success are so much greater.  Women have a a level of insight, perception, intuition, and that sixth sense that can go SO FAR in helping to make our men everything that they can be.  It’s up to us, though, to use our powers for good and not evil!  🙂   Oh, and it’s up to you, husbands, to step up to the plate and assume the lead.  CONSISTENTLY.  Not just when you pick and choose.

I also believe that there’s a third purpose for marriage and that is to be a source of healing. We don’t have any control over the families that we’re born into and sadly, our natural families can cause deep, life-altering trauma to some of us.  It is MY belief that, chosen carefully, our spouses, when really submitted to God, can help to bring restoration to us.  I think that there is such power in us choosing the person to whom we can bear our souls, faults, and innermost secrets and fears.  Choosing the right person that is able to handle all that comes with us and loves us anyway can bring such strength and freedom from the bondage of all the junk that we have often spent our whole lives trying to hide.  Love covers a MULTITUDE of sins!  Ideally, before we take our vows, we have put in the work to bring our best selves to the altar so we don’t dump all of our junk at our spouse’s feet (or drown them in it) but sometimes it takes the intimacy of a marriage to really reveal how deep our issues are.  That’s why it’s important to understand and really take to heart what the Bible says about our roles as husbands and wives.  Misused and/or abused, we end up more deeply injuring the one that we vowed to love “for better or for worse, for richer or poorer,” etc.  Oh, and I feel the need to say that my writing all of this in no way suggests that I’ve been the perfect example of a woman fulfilling her role.  Quite the contrary! Marriage has exposed in me more faulty thinking and issues than I ever could have imagined.  I’ve had to come to terms with all kinds of REAL ugly stuff that I never knew was buried deep or simmering just below the surface in me.  A scripture that gripped me years ago is Proverbs 14:1, “A wise woman builds her home, but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.” (New Living Translation)  YIKES! I’m very sad to say that I have lived out the latter part of that verse more often than I would ever like to admit.

The good thing is that that’s not the end of the story!  Well, it doesn’t have to be, anyway.  II Chronicles 7:14 says, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.  (New International Version)  God Himself has laid out the plan for us if we would just be willing to follow it.  “Humble ourselves.”  Stand down.  “Take one for the team.”  Not easy!  In the heat of battle we tend to draw our lines in the sand and dig our heels in so we don’t in some way, by “giving in,” make it seem as if our feelings aren’t valid.  They probably are.  We’re all human and we’re flawed.  A lot of times we hurt the ones we love, especially our spouses, because they are the closest to us.  But there is forgiveness!  Stop pointing the finger, accept your own part in whatever is wrong, and turn away from it.  Ask God to help you do the right thing.  Still need help or can’t seem to “turn” on your own?  GET SOME COUNSELING!!!  Some things can’t just be prayed away or wiped away with a scripture.  I’m not contradicting myself.  God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.  Some things just require a little extra assistance.  Bottom line, if you, husband, are sincerely seeking and intending to do right by your marriage, and you, wife, are too, maybe we can start to right the ship and finally be the example for those who don’t know Christ and give them something to emulate!