My comments about trying to make our spouse or child into our own image instead of honoring God’s design and destiny for their lives seem to have struck a cord…so I thought I would share a few more thoughts about marriage.  Actually, I just want to talk about Christian marriages. I have been involved in pastoral counseling in churches for about thirty years and have sat in front of a counselor myself on more than one occasion.  As I reflect on those meetings, I really believe that most of the couples that have come into my office needed to be “discipled” in the ways of Christ much more than they needed marriage counseling. In many ways they never took Jesus home with them after they said, “I do.” I say that because it is not hard to tell people how to live under the same roof in harmony and love.   The hard thing is getting them to do it.

Scripture is pretty clear and I think very practical.  For instance, we are told to love one another as Christ loved us and then we are given a number of hints about what that looks like.  In the New Testament alone there are a number of “one another” passages that command us to relate to others in certain ways that are very practical ways of loving another person.  We are told to pray for one another, serve one another, put the needs of others before our own, encourage one another, build up one another, submit to one another, be devoted to one another, honor one another, accept one another, and forgive one another as Christ forgave us. There are other passages just as straight forward but these are a sampling.  Most of them are clear enough and don’t take a lot of imagination to figure out ways in a relationship to fulfill these commands. The problem is that couples in marriages that are troubled find all kinds of reasons not to treat each other in these loving ways.

We usually begin to fight in a marriage because our emotional needs for security, affirmation, intimacy, respect, affection, and so forth are not being met by our spouse.  So, we begin to ask for what we want in vague or manipulative ways or assume that if our spouses truly loved us then they could read our minds and intuitively know what we are needing.  As these “needs deficits” build up, our attempts to get our spouse to do what we want become more coercive.

We resort to anger, biting criticisms, silent treatments, guilt tripping, withholding affection, demeaning language, sarcasm, nasty names, accusations, judgments, and bringing up the past in our attempts to force the other person to give us what we need.  In doing so we violate about every teaching or commandment Jesus ever gave us regarding relationships.  When we are called out on our disobedience, we simply try to justify our positions based on the other person’s disobedience. “I said that because he….  I won’t do that until she…. He doesn’t deserve my respect because…. I might forgive after she….”   You can add more of these statements if you like.

But that is like saying that we lie because other people do.  We commit adultery because someone else did.  We refuse to forgive because someone hasn’t earned our forgiveness.  Jesus doesn’t make our godly behaviors conditional on the godly behaviors of others.  In fact, he calls us to love when others don’t.  He calls us to speak well of others when they slander us. He tells us to throw in our coat when someone sues us for a jacket. And he tells us to pray for those who persecute us. How much more should we do those things in a marriage?  So why don’t we do those things?  There are lots of reasons we push back against these commands. We are afraid the other person will take advantage of our kindness.  We are afraid that our needs will never be met.  We are afraid that if we give up too much power in the marriage we will simply be someone’s servant without respect and without standing.  It just seems too risky.

The truth is that obedience to Christ nearly always puts us at risk of being taken advantage of, of being seen as weak, of letting others get the credit they don’t deserve at the office, etc. And yet Jesus still says that we must not attempt to overcome evil with evil but must overcome evil with good. He goes so far as to command us to love our enemies…even when we are married to one.  If you are in a difficult marriage right now your flesh was probably screaming that each of those commandments is insane.

So here is the bottom line.  When we push back against the teachings of Jesus it is because we don’t trust him to protect us, meet our needs, or bless our relationships through surrender. We don’t believe his word is true for us and we don’t believe obedience will produce good outcomes for us. We are afraid to trust and afraid to obey. I am not saying that my surrender to Jesus will save every marriage because eventually both must surrender. But I will say that obedience gives any marriage its best chance but, more than that, it prevents your heart from being poisoned in the process and keeps you form becoming the very thing you hated in your spouse.

Christian marriages fail because we fail to trust the one who designed marriage.  Discipleship is all about trust. When I fail in following Jesus it may be because I don’t know his will in a certain matter but, typically, it is because I don’t believe that doing it his way is in my best interest – in marriage, at the office, or on the golf course.  So, I decide to do it the world’s way which is Satan’s way.   And every time I do it his way, I “take and eat” of the fruit in one form or another.  Victory in the kingdom of God usually takes a kind of reckless obedience like Shadrach and the boys that seems to place us in the fire at first but then brings deliverance after a time of testing. It’s always been that way.  Our marriages need that same reckless obedience on many occasions and someone always has to go first. Think about it and be blessed today!