No tags yet.
What is the purpose of a marriage? A quick google search gives you many ideas: financial security, raising children, experiencing life together, growing old together, satisfying the obnoxious family members who ask if you will ever get married? Perhaps all viable options, but is it enough? Are these reasons the purpose for joining your life with another to walk through life, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do you part?
My husband and I have been reading Francis Chan’s book You and Me Forever: Marriage in light of eternity. Man has it been a game changer. Let me share this quote with you—it’s a long one so bear with me.
Does your marriage stand out in this generation? This relationship was designed to reflect God’s glory. We either shine a light that makes sense as a child of God or we take part in the crookedness and depravity of the world around us. In a way, if we don’t get it right in our marriage relationships, it won’t really matter how well we do beyond that.
Marriage is a big deal when you think of it that way. God does so much work in our minds and hearts through this relationship. Marriage is one of the most humbling, sanctifying journeys you will ever be a part of. It forces us to wrestle with our selfishness and pride. But it also gives us a platform to display love and commitment. (pg. 35)
I read this, re-read it, underlined it, and finally circled both paragraphs. Marriage is not about us. Its not about how we can fight/date/love better in order to enrich our relationship—those things are great things—rather our relationship is a direct representation of Christ’s pursuit of the Church. This relationship that we love and fight for is our platform to show Christ’s unconditional, self-sacrificing, grace giving love to every. single. person. around us.
Therefore, how do this change our pursuit of our spouse? Does it change the mindset from a “duty to love our spouse for better or for worse” to a mindset of “I love my spouse in order to share the love of Jesus with those around me.” The weight and importance this brings to how we manage our conflict, how we communicate, how we fight/date/love our partner in life shifts the focus from ourselves to our God.
We often relate the marriage relationship as the foundation for a family. A healthy, thriving marriage supports a healthy, thriving family. Imagine the strength of that foundation with a healthy, thriving, Christ-focused marriage. Romans 8:31 states, “What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” If God is at the heart of our marriage, nothing can stand against it.
Chan, Francis, and Lisa Chan. You and Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity. Claire Love Publishing, 2014.