This Is Marriage

 

Marriage is the knitting of two souls into one blanket that keeps out the chill of life.

Marriage is the exchanging of loneliness for the richness of companionship.

Marriage is independence becoming dependent.

Marriage is having two carry the burden meant for one.

Marriage is multiplying your joy while dividing your sorrow.

Marriage is not the absence of disagreement but the presence of compromise.

Marriage is trust given and trust returned.

Marriage is the pooling of resources and the evaporation of selfishness.

Marriage is God’s plan for a wonderful life.

Marriage is the best of both worlds.

Marriage is a foretaste of glory divine.

Marriage is hard work.

Marriage is having someone to read the map while you drive.

Marriage is the poetry of two entwined lives melding into one.

Marriage is the combination of strength and beauty.

Marriage is apologizing, not because you are wrong, but because you hurt the love of your life.

Marriage is trading McDonald’s for a delicious meal.

Marriage is the multiplying of love with the addition of wrinkles.

Marriage is the creating of two smiles where there had been none.

Marriage is the acceptance of responsibility and the abdication of foolishness.

Marriage is always having someone to button the back of your dress.

Marriage is always having someone to pick the lint off your suit.

Marriage is coming home to a kiss instead of an empty house.

Marriage is having someone care how you feel, what you think, and where you are.

Marriage is finally being allowed to use mistletoe for its intended purpose.

Marriage is two nuts becoming a single tree.

Marriage is the joining of souls in twin bodies.

Marriage is the discovery and exploration of the fascinating world that is the other gender.

Marriage is the union of similar differences.

Marriage is the bringing of Heaven to Earth.

Marriage is not an experiment, but a commitment.

Marriage is sometimes leading and sometimes following, but always loving.

Marriage is the utter revocation of others and the utter acceptance of one.

Marriage is the anchor around which successful lives navigate.

Marriage is the lifelong opportunity of living for someone else.

Marriage is giving yourself away unconditionally.

Marriage is not the spice of life but rather the main course.

Marriage is not the ignoring of flaws but the acceptance of the flawed one.

Marriage is the greatest test of character in the world.

Marriage is fun.

Marriage is sadly becoming old-fashioned.

Marriage is Christianity in work clothes.

Marriage is the completion of two incomplete people.

Marriage is privilege accompanied by responsibility.

Marriage is not fifty fifty but hundred hundred.

Marriage is rewarding.

Marriage is the most important earthly decision of our lives.

Marriage is for better for worse, in sickness and in health, til death do you part.

Marriage is learning to enjoy shopping because of who you are with.

Marriage is learning to enjoy football because of who you are with.

Marriage is being convinced you got the best of the catch.

Marriage is doing all you can to be the best of the catch.

Marriage is the proper balance of needs and wants, namely you want to give them whatever they need.

Marriage is two walking together because they are agreed.

Marriage is growing old along with me; the best is yet to be.

Marriage is the weave that keeps the fabric of our society from unraveling.

Marriage is having someone to pat you on the back instead of breaking your arm doing it yourself.

Marriage is adding a rose to the thorns of life.

Marriage is an obligation of delight.

Marriage is the cornerstone upon which civilization rests.

Marriage is a good life's work.

Marriage is the other half of yourself.

Marriage is forever.

-by Tom Brennan

Christmas, 1999

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. 

               

Marriage Myths: Divorce Is Their Fault

 

Marriage 27

          I confess I do not much want to write today's post. I fear it will be misunderstood. More than that, though, I am afraid it will hurt people, good people, who will take my words in a judgmental way I do not intend. Such is the case when you write about divorce. It is the third rail – electrified and dangerous to touch. But I must if I am to write a well-rounded series on marriage. More than that, I must if I am to convey to the never-married and currently married people in my readership what I believe they need to know. Or, at the least, consider.

          In 2024, 673,000 marriages ended. A small percentage initiate divorce because they want to marry someone else. This small group will admit that the divorce is mostly their fault, though they will often fault their partner for being unloving, thus driving them into the arms of another. However, the typical person who sues for divorce has a long list of grievances against the other party. Lack of commitment. Infidelity. Domestic abuse. Incompatibility. Conflict. Financial pressure. Substance abuse. Etc.

          That is a rather long list with some ugly things on it. Put another way round, generally people divorce because they feel their partner does not do _________, which they should, or that they do __________, which they should not. Alternatively, it involves not what they do but what they are, positively or negatively. Put bluntly, most people who divorce do not think it was their fault the marriage dissolved. Statistically speaking, 66% of men and 74% of women blame their partner primarily for the divorce. “Yes, I am sure this is partly my fault, but it is mostly their fault. If they would have/If they wouldn’t have (fill in the blank) we would probably still be married.”

          That viewpoint is a significant contributing factor to the possibility of divorce itself. If I tend to blame them while exonerating myself, I am already on the road that may well end in divorce court.

          “That’s not fair, Pastor Brennan. You don’t know my situation.”

          You are right; I do not. Nevertheless, while this blog post does not apply to every marital situation, it still applies to most of them. And here is why: in my marriage, Mandy does not cause me to be the way I am; she reveals the way I am.

          Allow me to illustrate what I mean. Yesterday, I set out to tackle an obscure corner of my patio that has become overgrown with ground cover in the past few years. I wanted to put a wood rack there, and it needed to be cleared out. In the process, while using a weed whacker, I inadvertently sent a tiny particle of sand spinning through the air. Somehow, it went around my glasses and lodged in my eye. The resulting irritation was literal, I assure you. Unresolved, eventually, that sand may well have produced an eye infection and potential blindness. Yet an oyster that ingests sand solves the resulting irritation by secreting a substance around it that eventually forms a pearl.

          Was the sand the primary cause of the results in the eye? No. If it were, the results in my eye and in the oyster would be the same. It is, after all, the same substance. But the external irritant was not the problem, really. The sand was the agent that revealed the inner properties of the eye and the oyster.

          This problem is as old as marriage itself. And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Genesis 3.12)  Certainly, Eve bears guilt, but Adam bears guilt also. He cannot simply blame her for the ensuing disaster. His bad reaction to her wrong was just as much the cause of their crisis as her initial wrong.

          Blame is as automatic as breathing. We like to blame others because it gets us off the hook. But divorce, though often justified by blame, is usually at least just as much about my bad reaction as it is about their bad actions.

          Marriage reveals who you are more clearly than any other human relationship. Many people do not like what they see. Not in the other party, in themselves. So, to avoid seeing themselves accurately in an unflattering way, they bail on the marriage, all the while blaming it on the other person. They cannot handle the revelation of their own shortcomings in reaction to their partner's flaws. Rather than deal with it they walk away.

          Some of you do not believe me yet. Let me give you one final illustration. Why do so many people avoid reading the Bible? James 1 likens the Word of God to a mirror. Those who do not want to see how bad their actual condition is avoid the mirror rather than working on the problem. Our flesh does not like to see itself for what it is – lustful, bitter, lazy, proud, vindictive, jealous, angry, deceitful, weak, petty, and a thousand other things. So, we avoid the Bible instinctively.

          It is that same innate avoidance of seeing ourselves as we really are that is so often at the heart of divorce. And if I am right, divorce is not usually about my partner’s flaws as much as it is about my own. And when I leave, I take my flaws with me, unchecked, unmitigated, and unmortified. No matter how much I mollify myself by blaming my partner.  

          Maybe, just maybe, divorce is not the answer you think it is.

Marriage Myths: The Test Drive

 

Marriage 26

 

Marriage Myths: The Test Drive

 

          "You would be a fool not to. How else do you think you will know if you like it? It might not suit you at all. It's such an important decision that you should gather all the information you can about it before you make it. Only an idiot doesn't take a test drive."

          That paragraph may well represent wisdom about choosing a car, but it is absolute folly when selecting a husband or a wife. Yet the idea that living together before marriage results in a better chance at a lasting marriage is extremely popular. The last data I could find from the Census Bureau (2016) estimates that 18 million people live together as partners. That is triple what it was when I graduated from high school in the early 90s. Furthermore, The Centers for Disease Control estimates that 50% of all women under 30 will choose this route on the way to marriage.

          Jesus said it so well in the Autumn before His death: Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. (John 8.44) Of the various marriage myths we will examine for the next few weeks in this blog series, surely this has to be the biggest and the most damaging. It is an utter lie.

          Living together before marriage violates God’s Word. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. (Hebrews 13.4) The physical act of marriage is not designed for a test drive. It is designed for the union of two souls. It is designed to create the intimacy necessary for trust and love to thrive. It is designed to produce children. It is designed to bring joy to a couple who have risked everything on a life committed to each other. The last thing God intended for it to be was a selfish, commitment-free mirage of a hedonistic joy ride.

          Ironically, the very pragmatism that lies at its core would argue against entering a cohabitation living arrangement. In a February 2010 report, the Centers for Disease Control found that married couples ten years in who lived together prior to marriage divorced at a rate of 40%; married couples ten years in who had not lived together prior to marriage divorced at a rate of 34%. Apparently, the test drive theory is faulty. Now, why would that be?

          I propose the answer is relatively simple. The vital element necessary to a successful marriage is commitment. There is no other way to build a good marriage. At some point, and soon, every marriage requires it. Living together as man and wife, mingling your past, present, and future, sharing the same living space, reacting differently to the same stimuli, experiencing health problems, legal issues, financial difficulties, parenting pressures, and a thousand other things will push you apart. In this scenario, when your dreamboat turns out to be a bit of a shipwreck, commitment becomes the cement that binds you together. The married couple who initially cohabited, however, bring a decreased sense of commitment and an elevated sense of "we're trying this" to the relationship. It does not take a rocket scientist to establish why the latter approach produces a greater chance of divorce.

          There are no better ideas than God's ideas. Living together before marriage is a bad idea.    

How to Have A Good Fight

 

Marriage 25

 

          Every union of two people will come to inevitable disagreements over time. Each gender has different strengths, and each individual has different personalities. Conflict happens, even in the best of marriages. Last week, we looked at the philosophy of a good fight. In a marital disagreement, our intent ought to be to understand what the other person is thinking and feeling so that we may minister grace to them. This week, I want to give you seven practical ideas to help you do so.

First, choose your fight time wisely.

Do not fight when the discussion must be hurried by the rush of time or

events. This will entirely shortcut understanding. Do not fight in public. More than just bad form, it defeats one of the cardinal purposes of marriage: publicly representing the love Christ has for His church. Do not fight in the heat of emotion. As a rule, the more emotion you experience, the less thinking you do. Logic may lead to emotion, but the reverse rarely happens. As well, do not fight upon first coming together i.e. waking up in the morning, returning from work in the evening. Let your (re) unions be peaceful and happy.

          Second, do not interrupt each other.

It is natural to want to defend yourself when you feel you are being misrepresented or even misunderstood. But your whole approach in this fight is not to make yourself understood; it is to understand your partner. The more they talk, the more chance you will have of getting to the root of their real thoughts and feelings. So let them talk.

          One particular book I read on marriage spoke of a couple that had trouble in this precise area. They could not keep from interrupting each other. So, they devised the spoon rule. When it was time for a fight, one of them brought a spoon. Whoever was holding the spoon got to talk. And only one person could hold the spoon at a time. Maybe you should bring a spoon to your next fight.

          Three, use soft words to reveal your hurt.   

          Words mean things. The things those words mean are amplified when they are spoken in emotion by someone for whom you care deeply. “You are a _________________ son of a ____________ for …” lands entirely differently than, “I don’t think you meant to come across this way when you did… but this is how I felt when you did it.” I know grown men and women who still struggle with something their parents voiced to them decades ago, voiced in a harsh manner. Words are tools that reveal what we think and feel, and no tool should be used as a weapon.

          Fourth, boomerang their comments.   

          When it is your turn to speak, you ought to begin by reiterating what you understood them to say. "What I heard you say was… Did I get that right?" Often, the one most hurt is the one not communicating clearly. As such, clarifying statements like this reveal that lack of communication and allow it to be resolved before the hurt metastasizes.

          Fifth, resist the temptation to bring up past issues.

          In a trial, a judge must rule carefully on what past events a prosecutor is allowed to bring up for precisely this reason. Past hurled forward is prejudice. I agree that context is often helpful in resolving issues; I disagree that context needs to be developed in granular detail. When you bring up the past, you make the current argument too big and too complicated to deal with in one conversation. Additionally, your memory and interpretation of those events are often one-sided, if not downright unfair. Deal with the problem at hand, not ten years' worth of complaints. If you keep short accounts with each other, you will find it most helpful here.

          Six, make what is important to them important to you.

          At the risk of being too transparent, let me tell you about the only time Mandy almost left me. We had not been married more than a year or two when I returned from work to find her suitcase packed and sitting in the hall. We had had an argument that morning, and in the course of the argument, I had uttered an entirely forgettable throwaway phrase, "You're an idiot." It was a phrase I had said a thousand times to a thousand people in my life. What I did not know was that this phrase was deeply painful to her and always had been. It was not to me. To me, it was just the way people talked when they were venting. To her, it was highly offensive, provoking enough to cause her to pack her bags to go home to Momma for a night or two.

          When I discovered this, I was flabbergasted. If anything was idiotic, overreacting to being called an idiot seemed to be a perfect example. But as I processed it, I realized it did not matter how it felt to me; it mattered how it felt to her. It was important to her that I not call her an idiot. Since that day, I never have.

          Seventh, above all, remember your goal is to know and understand the other person. If you will pursue that knowledge and understanding, you will almost always find wisdom arrives with it. In other words, once you know how and why they did what they did and feel how they feel, you will know how best to respond. And your response will be edifying.

          “Pastor Brennan, you keep talking about a good fight. I thought fights were never good.”

          If you will do these seven things it will be a good fight. Because good will come out of it.     

The Philosophy of A Good Fight

 

Marriage 24

 

          Love and hurt come together. Love is created and nurtered in an atmosphere of trust, openness, and vulnerability but these very things create the potential for emotional pain. When we love and are misunderstood, we hurt. When we love and are disappointed, we hurt. When we love and are rejected, we hurt. When we love and are ignored, we hurt. When we love and are frustrated, we hurt. Etc.

          There are good and bad ways to respond to this hurt. One of the poorer responses, however, is all too common—they lash out in attack.

What next? When we (unintentionally or intentionally) hurt the one we love and they lash out in attack the question then comes: What next? Often, our reflexes kick in and we automatically defend ourselves. Alternatively, if we have a bit more self-control we respond with silence. Sometimes, we attempt a hurried, conversation-stopping apology so as to head off more verbal fireworks. Worse yet, we react to attack by an attack of our own.  

The Apostle Paul gives us a helpful screen to strain all of our conversations, including marital. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. (Ephesians 4.29) In this context, I am forced to recognize that defending myself when I am attacked does not minister grace. Attacking my attacker, in turn, certainly does not minister grace either. There is wisdom in silence, and sometimes, simply taking in our partner's anger is the most gracious thing we can do, but other times, silence is not golden; it is just plain yellow. Nor is a conversation-shortening apology going to minister grace either, for all it does is wall off the problem without dealing with it.

Most of these are bad options most of the time because none of them deal with the hurt back of the attack. To deal with the hurt I must understand what caused it so that I may strive to avoid causing it again. It then follows that I must know what they are thinking or feeling in order to understand what caused the attack.

Solomon tells us this in relation to the family dynamic in Proverbs 24.3, Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established. There must needs be a good how and a good why in dealing with the verbal attacks that happen in every marriage from time to time. Peter builds on this specifically in the context of marriage. Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel. (I Peter 3.7) In a fight, I need to know what we are fighting about (knowledge), how to respond best in that fight (wisdom), and why I ought to respond that way (understanding).

What ought to be my overall goal in these types of conversations? To minister grace. To do that, I need three things: knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Practically speaking, when I defend myself, attack them in turn, ignore them in sullen silence, or cut off the conversation with a hurried apology, I gain none of these things. Responding so unwisely adds little to my necessary base of knowledge and understanding and thus prevents me from ministering grace.

Grasping this, what is my aim in a good fight? When I am attacked, what philosophical thought process should guide my response? Simply this: I want to know and understand my partner. Defending myself is not a priority. Calming them down is often helpful but only sometimes a priority. Defusing the situation so we return to the status quo is not the priority either. I want to know what my partner feels and why they feel that way. Only with this knowledge and understanding may I respond in wisdom to minister grace.

The most crucial thing in a fight is to understand each other.

Next week, we will talk about how to do that.     

 

         

Decide to Love

 

Marriage 23

 

          There may not be a worse phrase in the English language than “fall in love.” In today’s post, I intend to prove that to you scripturally. More importantly, I want to permanently remove from your mind the validity of falling out of love with your mate.

          It is undeniable that a husband is emphatically told to love his wife. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. (Ephesians 5.25) Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them. (Colossians 3.19) A wife is also instructed to love her husband. That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children. (Titus 2.4) Yet I know what it is like to have spouses sit in my office and tell me, “I just don’t love her/him anymore.”

          This marriage-killing excuse is rational if love is something that happens to you by accident, a feeling that is produced in you by another person's actions. But such an approach to love, while widely held in our society, has no basis in Scripture. Love is not an accident. Love is not a reaction on your part to how likable or nice others are toward you. Love has feeling, but it is not a feeling. Love is an attitude of affection and giving on your part which you choose to extend to another. In short, love is a choice you can decide to offer to someone.

          If I am right, each partner permanently loses the right to say to the other, "I don't love you anymore," because that partner has become unlovable or someone else has become more lovable. If I am right, each partner permanently loses the justification for falling out of love.

          So why do I assert this? What is my scriptural support?

          I say this first because love is a decision of the will. I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. (Psalm 18.1) The psalmist’s love for God was not based on his perception or knowledge of or reaction to God’s goodness; it was based on a decision of the will.

          I say this second because love is a command. Eight times in Scripture we are faced with the command to love our neighbor. Twelve times we are told to love one another. Additionally, husbands and wives are commanded to love each other. Indeed, the greatest commandments in the Bible revolve around mandates that we love. A command that is dependent on how another person makes you feel is nonsensical. Put another way round, if fulfilling the command to love is dependent on what another person does to make me feel something then that commandment is not a valid commandment; it is a suggestion. A command to be a command must only require God and me in order to fulfill it.

          I say this third because where God commands, He enables. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (II Timothy 1.7) Do not tell me you cannot love those whom God tells you to love. Tell me you do not want to anymore, that it is not enjoyable anymore, but do not tell me you cannot. The Holy Spirit gives us the wherewithal to obey these instructions just as He does other biblical mandates. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5.5) But the fruit of the Spirit is love. (Galatians 5.22)

          I say this fourth because God's love toward us is clearly not related to how lovable we are. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. (I John 3.1) God’s love for us is a bestowal, a choosing to love us, but to Israel in the Old Testament and to the church in the New Testament. Not a single individual reading this post will ever qualify to be loved by God; we do not qualify, we accept.

          I say this, fifth, because there is no example in Scripture of someone who stopped loving due to the recipient being unlovable. Love is mentioned 405 times in the Bible. If falling out of love is truly as prevalent as our society has trained us to think you would think it would be mentioned in there somewhere. But is is not. I cannot find one justified instance of anybody who actually loved someone not loving them anymore.

Lloys (l) and John R. Rice (r)

          Many years ago, Jack Hyles was being driven to a meeting. He was in the front passenger seat, and John R. Rice and his wife, Lloys, were seated in the back. Jack Hyles overheard the following snippet of conversation:

Lloys: John R., do you love me?

John R.: Yes

Lloys: Why do you love me?

John R.: Because God commanded me to.

Lloys: John R., that doesn’t turn me on.

John R.: But it won’t turn me off either.

          I suppose some readers may find that it strains credulity, but I do not. I have read Rice's books on marriage and the home; it tracks with their content. John R. Rice understood that the foundation of his love for his wife was not her physical attractiveness, her mental agility, her emotional brightness, or her spiritual fervor. His love for her did not depend on how well she kept the house, raised the children, or did the laundry. It did not depend on how tasty her cooking was, her response to his advances, or how well she managed the family budget. It depended instead on his willingness to be obedient to his Heavenly Father’s commands. It was thus a decision of his will.

          Love is a choice. Decide to love the one to whom you are married. Regardless of the circumstances.