Marriage Myths: My Self-Worth = My Marriage

 

Marriage 31

 

          You are an insecure person. That is not an insult but rather a simple statement of fact. How do I know? Because you are a human being. Some of us are insecure and hide it behind a false front of machismo and bravado. Others of us are insecure yet refuse to admit it. Still others of us are insecure, and let it bleed through into our personality constantly. We call the latter drama queens. The truth is all of us are drama queens in one way or another. Some are just more visible than others.

          Disappointment often brings that insecurity to the fore. Our thinking, feelings, and even sometimes our speech and actions fall victim to it. Our inner man is always weak, yet sometimes it is weaker than at other times, or perhaps I should say more noticeably weak. We notice it. Others notice it. Sometimes both. We lose a job and cannot find another. We are forced into bankruptcy or lose a home to foreclosure. Our children rebel against us and the Lord. Our besetting sin gets the upper hand in a way that seems final. Our marriage develops serious stress fractures. Such examples could be multiplied ad infinitum. The result is an inward (and sometimes outward) "I'm a loser" type of attitude or feeling.

          The real issue will not be found in the list I just gave. The actual problem is that God never designed us to get our self-worth and emotional security from that which we personally accomplish. Nebuchadnezzar looked at the empire he built through the lens of its greatest city and uttered the infamous line, Is not this great Babylon which I have built? (Daniel 4.30) No, it was not. It was not great nor had he built it. It was temporarily impressive because the Lord had designed it to accomplish something in His purpose. And God had to take it away from him via taking him away from it in order to reveal that to him.

          God did not design us to get our self-worth from any human accomplishment or relationship; He designed us to get our self-worth and, thus, our emotional security from what He did and does for us. He made us in His own image. (Psalm 8) He valued us so highly and loved us so much He sacrificed His own Son for us. (John 3.16) I am valuable, I am worth something because I am worth something in His eyes. The proof is not that something is going right in my life; the proof is the price the Creator was willing to pay for my soul.

          What does this have to do with marriage and the home? Only everything. I am not a worthless human being if my marriage dissolves. My life is not a waste if my children rebel. Both of those will hurt indescribably should they happen to you, but they do not mean that you are a loser. You were not a winner when your marriage was sweet, and your children were obedient; you are not a loser if the opposite becomes true. You are a winner, so to speak, because you are valuable in your Lord’s eyes, made in His image, redeemed by His blood, purchased for His own purposes.

          Emotional security can only come from one source: Him. Millennia ago, the sweet psalmist of Israel expressed this truth in the broken shards of Psalm 62. My soul, wait thou only God; For my expectation is from him. Find your all in all in Him, your meaning and purpose in life, your emotional security, your expectations and fulfilments. All my springs are in thee. (Psalm 87.7)

          I am not saying the state of your marriage does not matter; it obviously does. But your self-worth is not defined by it. It is defined by Him.

 

 

Marriage Myths: Punishing Them Works

 

Marriage 30

 

          We spent quite a few weeks earlier in this series looking at each partner’s scriptural responsibilities in marriage. I do not remember anything in which one partner was to parent the other. Certainly, the husband is to lead his family spiritually, including his wife, but that does not mean he is supposed to punish her.

          In the mid-16^th century, Richard Taverner issued a new English Bible. It contained minor revisions of an earlier one, the Matthews Bible. It is mostly remembered for an oddity, a note in the margin alongside I Peter 3.7. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered. Taverner’s marginal note took this verse in a rather unusual direction. “And if she be not obedient and helpful unto him, endeavoreth to beat the fear of God into her head, that thereby she may be compelled to learn her duty and to do it.” For this reason, Taverner’s edition of the Matthews Bible is known in history as the wife beater’s bible.

          Although few married couples conduct themselves in such a manner, thankfully, what they do instead is only marginally different in effect. When they do not like what the other person is doing, they hold something back to get even with them or teach them a lesson. The (dys) functional idea is, "Well if I don't do ____________, then he (or she) will realize how it feels when they don't do _____________." Punishment, in plain language.

          At this point, I would like to pose a most pertinent question. Is this the scripturally mandated manner in which we are supposed to respond to personal trespass? Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven. (Matthew 18.21-22) To which Paul expands beautifully in I Corinthians 13. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. You can strain that with a cheesecloth, and you will not find any punishment.

          I beg you to listen to this next sentence. It is not your job to fix your partner. Husband, it is your job to love and to lead and to provide for her. Wife, it is your job to respect and to follow him. Both of you, it is your job to minister the one to the other. But it is not your job to fix them. There is nothing in the Bible that would say such at all.

          In addition, not only is it unbiblical to punish your partner in an effort to change their behavior, but it is not even practical. How often do sanctions via the United Nations work on a rogue country? Zilch. More often than not, what develops is an antagonistic relationship ala the US/Iran/North Korea, rather than an adjustment of their actions to conform to our desires. Punishing your partner will not make your marriage heavenly; it will produce another Cold War.

          Emerson Eggerichs says it this way in his book, Love and Respect. “The rule that never changes is: you can’t get what you need by depriving your partner of what your partner needs.”

          You think you can. But it is a myth.     

Marriage Myths: Seek Counsel When You Are Unhappy

 

Marriage 29

 

          Throughout Scripture, there is a primacy placed on seeking counsel. Thou shalt guide me with thine counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. (Psalm 73.24) Where no counsel is, the people fall: But in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. (Proverbs 11.14) I could easily cite dozens more.

          Life is a matter of relationships. If you do not believe me, ask the people in Western North Carolina what matters to them now. It is not their career, their stuff, or their reputation. What matters to them is the people they love. It then follows that if life is a matter of relationships, we should certainly be getting counsel about how to better maintain and improve those relationships. Foremost amongst these relationships is marriage. Put plainly, seeking counsel in reference to your marriage is certainly a scriptural and wise thing.

          Why, then, am I criticizing it?

          Look again at the wording of this particular marriage myth: seek counsel when you are unhappy. Assuming this is the approach, this makes your goal in seeking marital counseling one of happiness. However, it should not be the counselor's goal to make you happy, nor should it be your goal.

          Why not? First, because this is a pragmatic approach, and though Scripture does not totally rule out pragmatism, we certainly should not lead with it philosophically. Second, if happiness is my overriding goal in my marriage, I have opened the door to ungodly thoughts and actions. After all, if they make us happy, what right do you have to tell me to avoid them? Third, many divorces happen for precisely this reason – happiness is the goal, and it is slowly determined that it cannot take place within the marriage; ergo, the marriage is dissolved.

          Happiness ought never be a goal; happiness is a byproduct. It is the incidental outcome obtained on the pathway of obedience to the Lord. Of the 137 times the word "counsel" is found in the Word of God, it is never connected, in a good sense, with becoming happy. It is connected with knowing what God wants you to do. It is also connected with learning how to do what you already know God wants you to do. In other words, counsel is connected with obedience.

          Make no mistake, I am for marital counseling. But it is not to make you happy; it is to make you obedient. What does God want you to do in this situation? How exactly do you do that, or how can you do that better? Seek marital counseling for these things, beloved, and happiness will come by inevitable default.   

Marriage Myths: I Can Change Him/She Will Not Change

 

Marriage 28

 

          Single people often make two cardinal mistakes while dating. Each is similarly different than the other. The woman is not blind to the man's weaknesses, but she has a plan for that. She is going to fix him. After they get married, she is going to go to work hammer and tongs and turn him into the man his mother should have. On the other hand, the man contemplates his future bride with unmitigated delight. She is alluringly beautiful and sweetly endearing. The wedding will encapsulate her in a chrysalis of amber. This charming creature of youth and beauty and tenderness will be his to his dying day.

          They are both wrong.

Let us examine each briefly in turn. 

          My dear fellow, I hate to break it to you, but the footsteps of time chase all of us down. Solomon tells us to rejoice with the wife of our youth not with our youthful wife. (Proverbs 5.18) God designed women to be constantly changing, physically and emotionally. I do not mean He designed them to be unstable. I mean, He created them to meet the varied needs of the husband and children around them, needs that shift with the passing of time. As I pen this, I am fifty-one. My children are twenty-two, twenty, and fifteen. If Mandy was the same woman now as the one I married in 1999, my children and I would be in a world of hurt. But she is not. She is the same individual, but the decades of life in between have wrought some changes. If I fight that or resent that, I will have a constant erosion at the center of my marriage.

          My dear lady, I hate to break it to you, but first off, if he will not change for you as he seeks to win you, why would he after he has? Second, as men age, they generally become more resistant to change. That is why old men wear the pants they bought thirty years ago. Their life often resembles a canyon worn deep by the river of time, channels unchanged except for their depth. Third, you cannot change anyone; only the Holy Spirit can. The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will. (Proverbs 21.1) While you can pray for the Lord to turn your husband, you must also accept it is beyond your power to do so directly. Fourth, and most importantly, failure to understand this produces a profoundly flawed marriage, one in which the wife has either become a battleaxe of a nag that the husband flees from or one in which the wife has so emasculated the husband he could not lead a horse to water.

          What is the moral of the story? Man, choose carefully, then be flexible as the Lord adjusts your wife for what you and your family are going to need next. Do not sigh with regret as she grows with the passing of the years. Woman, choose carefully, and then support your husband as God goes to work, forming him into the image of the Saviour. Do not mother him or nag him. Do not attempt to be his Holy Spirit. There is no vacancy in the Trinity.

          “I can change him.”

          “She won’t ever change.”

          Myths.