Dear Friends,

It’s June – traditionally the month of weddings. The starry-eyed bride and groom pledge their love in front of their families and friends and launch out into the deep and sometimes stormy waters of marriage. Why do you suppose that God created marriage in the first place? A few thoughts come immediately to mind:

• Companionship: Expression of a committed love relationship.
• Children: Creating a stable family environment
• Service: Providing a platform for Christian service in the world around us
• Model: Showing the world a model of Christ’s relationship to the church

That’s a good list and all of these purposes have solid biblical foundations. But, I think that God’s ultimate goal in putting us together as man and wife is to change us, to make us holy, to purify us, and, in reality, to make us more like Jesus. Living in a committed relationship over the long haul may be the only way many of us can be transformed.

To state it more succinctly, I propose that many people get married because they think they are in love, but God created marriage to teach us how to love.

Most of us enter marriage thinking that it will be a fairy tale relationship, but it doesn’t take long for us to discover that being this man’s wife or this woman’s husband is the most difficult assignment we have ever taken on.

If we see marriage as a way to make us holy, we begin to allow our relationship with our spouse to be a spiritual discipline. Our interactions with our husbands or wives can mold us and grow us spiritually in much the same way that the more traditional disciplines such as Bible study, prayer, and worship can.

Marriage is one of the primary avenues God uses to bring us closer to Him – to make us holy. How does that work? First we have to live very closely with another person who is very different that we are. Not only are we male and female, but any two human beings will have personalities, preferences, and goals that are going to be at cross purposes at some point or another. When we live with someone long enough, those clashes will occur. How we handle those differences will determine whether we become more like Jesus or more hardened and egocentric.

Another thing (and this is unique to Christian marriages) is that anything as vital as marriage to our spiritual growth and to our testimony about God to the outside world is going to be a threat to the evil forces in this world. By entering into this kind of commitment we are opening ourselves up to vulnerability, pain, risk, and satanic attack.

When marriage is a spiritual battleground, we must be armed with the spiritual armor of faith, prayer, the word of God, support of one another, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We are not meant to fight such spiritual battles alone. When we confront Satan’s attacks God’s way, amazing things can happen in our relationships. And amazing things can happen within us. These spiritual conflicts can strengthen us if we let the power of God work through us in the middle of them.

Another thought: What did Jesus say were the commandments that summed up everything for us in how we are to live?

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

And at the last supper, after Jesus washed His disciples’ feet, He even upped the love requirement, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13:34).

Learning to love as Jesus loved is God’s greatest goal for us. Johann Christoph Arnold put it this way: “I am certain that when our last breath is drawn and our soul meets God, we will not be asked how much we have accomplished. We will be asked whether we have loved enough.”

If being good lovers (of God and of others) is the primary goal that God has for us, then our ability to love is the ultimate test of our spirituality. But we are not born knowing how to love as Jesus loved. That kind of love is a fruit that is produced by the Holy Spirit in our lives. But the training ground that He uses in order to produce true love in our hearts is often marriage.

Maybe this example will help: If you have ever gone to college, you know that after the first two weeks of school, the newly sharpened pencils begin to get chewed on, the autumn rains begin to fall, the first tests are scheduled, and you are trying to figure out a topic for your term paper. While you sat in the first day of class with starry eyes, you are now facing the realities of studying more, sleeping less, and succeeding most, but not all, of the time.

Sometimes, in fact, the professor criticizes your paper or tells you that your answer on the test is wrong. There are many of these attacks on your ego as you complete your first semesters of study and there are many times you are tempted to quit. And sometimes you cry. This higher level education is tough!

But the rewards are good, too. There comes the day when your presentation to the class is a home run and the feedback you get from your prof and from fellow students is energizing. Or the test grades are posted and you did better than you thought. Or the winter is over and you are walking briskly to class surrounded by blue skies and daffodils. On those days, this university life is pretty OK. And you smile.

Learning to love may be a bit like that. When we get married, we enroll in Love University (or Love U for short), hoping someday to graduate with a Ph.D. in relating to and loving another human being.

But the coursework is hard, much harder than we thought it would be. Sometimes we succeed and sometimes we fail. Sometimes we laugh and sometimes we cry. But, as we go through days and months and years being married to our mate, we have the opportunity to learn and to change. We begin to actually understand what it means

to love another human being,
to work at being “one”,
to sacrifice our own needs for the benefit of someone else, and
to receive whatever level of love he or she can give in return.

When we begin to see difficulties in our marriages as opportunities for spiritual growth, our attitudes change dramatically. When an issue arises with our spouse,

We go to God first.

We look to Him and His Word for direction.

We soften our hearts toward our mates and try to find solutions to our problems.

We talk.

We are willing to compromise.

We don’t attack.

And, most of all, we love - whether or not we are receiving the same kind of treatment in return.

So, how can we be more effective in building loving marriage relationships?

First, let’s do everything we can to increase our understanding of our spouse and of the biblical goals of marriage relationships. Read some good books on marriage and certainly find out what the Bible says about loving others. And learn all you can about the opposite sex - how they think and why they act the way they do. Men and women do think differently! The more understanding we can bring to our marriage, the more likely we will make heart to heart connections with our husbands or wives.

Secondly, I would encourage you to take some positive actions to feed and grow the love in your marriage. This simple list, taken from a secular magazine, may give you some help in making behavioral changes that will enliven your love life!

There is an old saw that says, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

Have we talked about anything today that will help you change the way you look at your marriage or your mate? If so, put it into practice.

Allow God to teach you through the training ground of your marriage.

Learn to love as He does.

And, then enjoy the results!

Learning with you,

Bev

*From Family Circle magazine, September 1, 2001, Barbara DeAngelis, Ph.D

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