I met with a young couple this morning. They were married less than a year and were already having major struggles in their relationship. He was frustrated. She was crying. They felt like they were fighting all the time and couldn’t understand what was going on. They both loved the Lord and were committed to ministry and growing spirituality so why were they fighting? Had they made a mistake? Did they misread God when they prayed and heard him bless their plans to become one?
After hearing their stories it became plain that they were missing one of the first rules of marriage – one of the first rules of loving someone in the Lord. That rule is to honor the way God has made the other person because he has made them for their destiny as well as you for your destiny. To fail to honor God’s design in another individual gets in the way of developing talents and spiritual gifts – which gets in the way of being fulfilled and fruitful -which gets in the way of love.
When we come to a place where the differences in another individual (especially a spouse or a child) begin to frustrate us our tendency is to get busy trying to encourage (or coerce) that person to become more like us. But in that moment we forget that God had a very intentional hand in making them just as he did in making us. David declared, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps.139:13-16).
In this Psalm we are told that God creates our inmost being. I understand that to be not only our talents but our temperament or personality as well. Our design is also related to our destiny – the specific things for which God has uniquely created us, the things ordained for us day by day in heaven. Most of us have an intuitive sense of what we were made for and we intuitively push back when people in our lives don’t allow us to “be ourselves.” We aren’t always sure of how we should express who we are but we know what feels natural and what feels unnatural to us. We know what subjects in school come more easily than others. We know what attracts us and what repels us.
Paul echoes the same sentiment in the New Testament. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Eph.2:10). Again, workmanship implies that God has an intentional hand in our design and our design is related to good works prepared in advance for us. It stands to reason that if God has ordained good works for us then he will also design us in such a way that we can be effective in accomplishing those things. In most cases, it will take not only the right talents but also the right temperament to fulfill God’s call on our life. In addition, the Spirit will release spiritual gifts in our lives as icing on the cake.
As an example, if God places a call on someone’s life to teach special needs children then that person will need the academic capacity to get a degree and the talent to teach plus compassion and patience to take into the classroom. In addition, that person will probably need a bent toward structure because the children will need structure. Talent and temperament both are needed and become part of God’s intentional design for that individual.
The couple I met with both had talents and a call to ministry but those gifts and that ministry needed to be expressed in different ways. He was extroverted and gregarious and loved to study the Word in big bites. He loved street ministry and his desire was to fill their house with teens every night for ministry and teaching. She was introverted and loved to go deep with a few people. She loved the clarity and structure of prepared studies. A house full of kids every night or approaching strangers on the street sounded like “a living hell” to her. It is not who God made her to be. Yet, her husband wanted so badly for her to be his mate in ministry that he was pressuring her to do ministry in ways that fit his design but not hers. She experienced that pressure as rejection of who she was and a statement that her spirituality was inadequate. She felt rejected by her new husband who really is a great guy. He just didn’t understand how his design called him to a different style that hers. I encouraged them to find some middle ground but to allow different expressions of their faith so that they both could fulfill the destiny God had ordained for them. Their destinies would be parallel as they went through life together but not identical.
Many of us have had destinies and spiritual gifts that never flourished because someone in our lives didn’t value the design God had built into us. As a result, we eventually either failed to value whom God had made us to be or just gave up on our dreams to keep the peace. As parents, spouses, or spiritual mentors it is not our job to make people into our image but to help them discover God’s unique design for their life and it release them into that adventure. Our job is to build them up and encourage them to pursue the “good works” for which God has destined them rather than to deconstruct them with criticism and to remake them as we see fit. Remember, we are to accept one another as Christ accepts us (see Rom.15:7).
One major aspect of Christian marriage, then, is that we pursue the destiny God has ordained for us while encouraging our spouse to do the same. As we each operate in our God-given gifts and talents we will experience the fulfillment of partnering with God and when we do, we will be more content in every part of our life and that contentment will bless our marriage. Remember the phrase, “Be all that you can be!” That needs to be our heart for our spouse and children in their service to the Lord. You will be blessed by blessing them as they grow to be all that God has made them to be.
