The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional
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BOTH HARD AND WONDERFUL. Here are two facts about marriage: it is exceedingly hard and uniquely wonderful. That sounds contradictory, but it is not. Think of the endless, excruciating hours of practice it takes to become a premier athlete, musician, scholar, or writer. The long, strenuous hours of labor gives those who endure them the ability, power, insight, and skill to create beauty. Marriage is hard, but so wonderful that the hardness and difficulty are absolutely worth it.
Reflection: Make two lists. What are the hardest things about marriage? What are the most wonderful things? How do the hard things actually lead to the wonderful things?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you to grow through trials and difficulties into someone who can love another person wisely and well.
January 20
There’s no relationship between human beings that is greater or more important than marriage. In the Bible’s account, God himself officiates at the first wedding (Genesis 2:22–25). And when the man sees the woman, he breaks into poetry and exclaims, “At last!” Everything in the text proclaims that marriage, next to our relationship to God, is the most profound relationship there is. And that is why, like knowing God himself, coming to know and love your spouse is difficult and painful yet rewarding and wondrous. (Hardcover, pp. 21–22; paperback, p. 14)
LOSING INDEPENDENCE AND FINDING FREEDOM. The Bible likens our relationship to God to a marriage, and with good reason. Christ lost his glory and power in order to come to earth and die for us. We must give up our rights to self-determination in order to unite with him in love. In the same way, spouses give up their freedom and independence in order to know the deeper freedom of mutual love and sacrificial service to one another. Once we are saved in Christ, then our knowledge and love of him progresses mainly through failures, repentance, and forgiveness. Failures are the way to learn and grow. Similarly, spouses find their love deepening as they fail, repent, and forgive each other.
Reflection: List other ways that our relationship with God is like the relationship of marriage. How does seeing these analogies help us with both relationships?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you more willingly surrender the freedom of independence in order to know the freedom of mutual love.
January 21
[There is] an increasing wariness and pessimism about marriage in our culture, and this is especially true of younger adults. They believe their chances of having a good marriage are not great, and, even if a marriage is stable, there is in their view the horrifying prospect that it will become sexually boring. (Hardcover, p. 22; paperback, pp. 14–15)
ARRANGED MARRIAGES? Some countries still include the practice of arranged marriage, where one’s spouse is chosen for you. Divorce rates for such marriages are actually lower than for other types of marriage in the society.6 The premise of such unions is that you can grow to love someone with whom you are not initially passionate. My own grandmother’s marriage was arranged and in describing it she told me that feelings of love follow actions of love as long as you are both seeking to love the other person. The Bible does not favor arranged marriages, but neither does it require strong sexual chemistry as a prerequisite. Modern people commonly assume that we have to have overwhelming, passionate feelings to begin a marriage, and that they can recede completely against our will. No wonder we are afraid.
Reflection: The Bible doesn’t prescribe any one way to find a mate. What are the disadvantages of arranged marriages? What are the advantages?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help Christian couples to put more stock in character and compassion than chemistry.
January 22
Driving this practice [of cohabitation] are several widespread beliefs. One is the assumption that most marriages are unhappy. . . . Living together before marriage, many argue, improves your chances of making a good marriage choice. It helps you discover whether you are compatible before you take the plunge. . . . The problem with these beliefs and assumptions, however, is that every one of them is almost completely wrong. . . . “[A] substantial body of evidence indicates that those who live together before marriage are more likely to break up after marriage.” (Hardcover, p. 23; paperback, pp. 15–16)
LIVING TOGETHER? Many couples think it common sense to live together before marriage in order to determine whether their romantic feelings will endure and if they are compatible. However, the majority of studies show that cohabiting couples are more likely to divorce should they marry, and they experience much more instability and dissatisfaction in general than married people. Why? One reason is that cohabitation fails to make committed trust the heart of the love relationship. To say “I love you but I don’t want to marry” is a contradiction. What you mean is, “I want to receive things from you, but I don’t love you enough to trust my whole life to you.”
Reflection: What are some of the reasons that cohabitation can set a couple up for trouble later, even if they marry? What are the advantages to living together only after you have married?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help the people of our society not fear marriage. Give them the strength to believe that marriage can offer them so much more than fleeting passion or convenience.
January 23
[I]ndividuals who were continuously married had 75 percent more wealth at retirement than those who never married or who divorced and did not remarry. . . . [M]arried people experience greater physical and mental health . . . marriage provides a profound “shock absorber” that helps you navigate disappointments, illnesses, and other difficulties. . . . Studies show that spouses hold one another to greater levels of personal responsibility and self-discipline than friends or other family members can. . . . Married people make each other practice saving, investment, and delayed gratification. Nothing can mature character like marriage. (Hardcover, p. 24; paperback, pp. 16–17)
POWER FOR CHANGE. There are many reasons why marriage can refine and change us for the good in ways that no other relationship can. Some are listed above. It provides support in suffering, accountability for behavior change, and incentive to learn long-term thinking rather than impulsiveness. Perhaps the biggest resource for personal transformation is that your spouse can see (and feel) your faults more than anyone else, even more than your parents or your siblings. And so it is possible to see ourselves more accurately through the eyes of our spouse than we have before. That makes change possible—but only if we learn to speak the truth in love to one another. If we refuse to speak truthfully in marriage we can get a more distorted picture of ourselves than we had before.
Reflection: How does failing to speak the truth in love in a marriage distort each spouse’s view of him- or herself? How does speaking the truth without love distort? How does loving but hiding the truth distort?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you speak the truth in love to one another. Especially ask for the graciousness and wisdom it takes to say hard things in a way that the listener can still accept.
January 24
[T]he number of married people who say they are “very happy” in their marriages is high—about 61–62 percent—and there has been little decrease in this figure during the last decade. Most striking of all, longitudinal studies demonstrate that two-thirds of those unhappy marriages out there will become happy within five years if people stay married and do not get divorced. . . . [One researcher wrote:] “the benefits of divorce have been oversold.” (Hardcover, p. 26; paperback, pp. 18–19)
NOT SO FAST. The Bible recognizes that in a sinful world, divorce may be right (Matthew 19:8), and no one should make excuses for an adulterer, a deserter, or an abuser. It is never loving to allow someone to sin against you. Nevertheless, the Bible indicates that divorce is to be a last resort. We are all quick to believe that the fault for any marriage problem lies mainly in the other, not us. If we refuse efforts to reconcile, if we flee too quickly from the marriage rather than recognizing our
own flaws and growing past them, we may only take the seeds of a new failure into the next marriage. Longitudinal studies and anecdotal experience confirm this biblical wisdom.7
Reflection: Can you name what looked like an intractable problem in your marriage (or someone else’s)? What helped you or the couple move forward?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to give you patience with your spouse, and to see your own faults and sins more clearly. Understanding your role in any relationship’s problems is essential to getting beyond it.
January 25
During the last two decades, the great preponderance of research evidence shows that people who are married consistently show much higher degrees of satisfaction with their lives than those who are single, divorced, or living with a partner. It also reveals that most people are happy in their marriages, and most of those who are not and who don’t get divorced eventually become happy. (Hardcover, p. 26; paperback, p. 19)
THE GOODNESS OF MARRIAGE. The percentage of American adults who have never been married is greater than ever and fewer never-married adults say they would like to be married.8 Marriage rates have also fallen dramatically in most European nations over the last ten years because younger adults value their independence but still want intimacy.9 Yet even under present cultural conditions, most marriages are happy and married people live more satisfied lives than unmarried people. This runs counter to the intuitions of younger adults, but it should not surprise us. Marriage is good for most of the population because it was invented by God for human well-being. That will always be the case.
Reflection: Do the findings mentioned in the quote above surprise you? Why is married life so satisfying for people?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to use his loving power over history to change social conditions, changing people’s fear and indifference toward marriage.
January 26
[C]hildren who grow up in married, two-parent families have two to three times more positive life outcomes than those who do not. The overwhelming verdict, then, is that being married and growing up with parents who are married are enormous boosts to our well-being. (Hardcover, p. 26; paperback, p. 19)
THE IRREPLACEABILITY OF MARRIAGE. A survey asked people which of the following statements came closer to their own views: “Society is better off if people make marriage and having children a priority, or society is just as well off if people have priorities other than marriage and children.” In 2014 fully two-thirds of those in their twenties chose the second.10 Yet no society has ever come up with any better way to nurture children into healthy adults other than through married, two-parent families.11 The Bible, of course, told us all this long ago, namely, that marriage is not exclusively about the fulfillment of the couple, but also about the creation of a new, enduring community for the nurture of new human life.
Reflection: Why do you think most young people agreed with the second statement? What beliefs lie behind it? Do you share those views?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to use his loving power over history to strengthen families for the sake of the happiness and well-being of the next generation of children.
January 27
Paradoxically, it may be that the pessimism [about marriage] comes from a new kind of unrealistic idealism about marriage, born of a significant shift in our culture’s understanding of the purpose of marriage. . . . [T]he earlier “ideal of marriage as a permanent contractual union designed for the sake of mutual love, procreation, and protection is slowly giving way to a new reality of marriage as a ‘terminal sexual contract’ designed for the gratification of the individual parties.” (Hardcover, p. 27; paperback, p. 20)
THE PRESSURE OF MODERN MARRIAGE. In previous times, the essence of marriage was seen as the covenant. Tension and disappointment was expected, but the contract was there when our emotions were unreliable. Jane Eyre gives the old view of vows and promises: “If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? . . . [On them] I plant my foot.”12 Modern marriage, however, is conditional and based on mutual gratification. That puts huge pressure on each spouse to stay attractive and low maintenance at all times to the other partner. Who can do that over the years? So the supposedly more liberating modern model of marriage might be dooming itself.
Reflection: Which of the two views described in the quote above is closer to your personal belief about the nature of marriage? Discuss how the older, more restrictive view can be more liberating.
Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you to see that, just as his service leads to freedom, so marriage vows and promises are ways to liberation.
January 28
The [older, Western view of marriage was] that the purpose of marriage was to create a framework for lifelong devotion and love between a husband and a wife. It was a solemn bond, designed to help each party subordinate individual impulses and interests in favor of the relationship. . . . Marriage created character by bringing male and female into a binding partnership . . . creating the only kind of social stability in which children could grow and thrive. (Hardcover, p. 27; paperback, pp. 20–21)
MARRIAGE AND CHRISTLIKENESS. Marriage is uniquely character forming. One reason (as we saw previously) is because no one can see your sins like your spouse. Your spouse will become a mirror in which you can see yourself more clearly than ever—if you have the courage to look. But there is a second reason. Marriage presents you with more opportunities for voluntary self-sacrifice than even parenting does. (The sacrifices you make for your children do not feel as voluntary.) Over and over every day marriage provides occasions in which you can respond to your spouse graciously rather than with irritation, humbly rather than with arrogance. This gives you many opportunities to grow into Christlikeness—if you have the courage to use them.
Reflection: What other reasons can you think of that make marriage uniquely character forming? How has it helped you in particular?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to shape you into Christlikeness through your marriage.
January 29
[In the new view] marriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self-actualization. . . . [So] married persons married for themselves, not to fulfill responsibilities to God or society. . . . [This] privatized marriage, taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any “broader good” such as reflecting God’s nature, producing character, or raising children. Slowly, but surely, this newer understanding of marriage has displaced the older ones in Western culture. (Hardcover, p. 28; paperback, pp. 21–22)
MARRIAGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. Modern young people are intensely committed to public good—to social justice, to improving society, to making the world a better place for all people to live. So it is ironic that they think of marriage as something strictly for their private happiness. In the past, people got married and had children with a weighty sense that this was a crucial good for society. While their marriages were often less than satisfying, people stayed married out of a sense of duty. The private-happiness view of marriage also puts far greater pressure on us to feel passionately in love all the time, while the older view did not. It is time to think again of marriage as, as least in large part, a public institution, and not just a lifestyle option.
Reflection: Do you think of your marriage as a “public good”? How does it function as such?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to strengthen your society and nation by strengthening your country’s marriages.
January 30
[Many speak of marrying] the “perfect soul mate,” someone very “compatible.” But what does that mean? . . . The first [factor] is physical attractiveness and sexual chemistry. . . . “We had settled into a routine where we only had sex once a week or so, maybe even less. There was no variety, and no real mental or emotional rewards. There was none of the urgency or tension that makes sex so great—that sense of wan
ting to impress or entice someone.” (Hardcover, p. 30; paperback, pp. 23–24)
SEX OVER THE LONG TERM. Many believe that what makes sex so great is “the desire to impress or entice someone.” This definition excludes the idea that sex can be enduringly wonderful over the long term in marriage. How could you “impress” someone who has been married to you for twenty years? How do you “entice” someone who has promised to be with you no matter what? And how do you do either when both of your bodies are aging and becoming inexorably less attractive? The deeper way to impress someone is with your character and to attract someone is with your delight in him or her. That sustains and grows sexual desire through the years. And that does not depend on what is now called “chemistry.”
Reflection: What do you think the term “sexual chemistry” means today? In what ways is it helpful for married couples? In what ways is it unhelpful?
Thought for prayer: Ask God to show you ways to sustain the romantic aspect of your relationship over the years.
January 31
However, sexual attractiveness was not the number one factor that men named when surveyed. . . . “More than a few of the men expressed resentment at women who try to change them. . . . Some of the men described marital compatibility as finding a woman who will ‘fit into their life.’ ‘If you are truly compatible, then you don’t have to change,’ one man commented.” (Hardcover, pp. 30–31; paperback, p. 24)