Relationships: I Got My Mrs. Now What?
It's June, and that means that everybody and their dog is getting married! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; I'm a June bride. I'm just saying...'tis the season! According to some research, the most popular month to get married is June. With that in mind, I figured it would be a good time to do some talking about relationships, specifically marriage.
It's come to my attention that America loves the idea of marriage. We want to be brides; we are princesses for a day. We want to celebrate with our friends and family, and have all the parties, and make all the memories. We want our lives to be built with fame and fortune, white picket fences, and a two-story house with a tire swing out front. But what happens when it gets hard? What happens when it doesn't play out like our romanticized, fairytale version of what's playing in our minds?
It's easy to quit.
See, the problem is that most often, I see people preparing for a wedding, not marriage. They are concerned about getting to the day they've been fantasizing about for years, but they are shortsighted in not looking beyond that. Sure, they think of their cozy home and all the happy things, but what about when it's not perfect?
What's it really mean to be a wife and a husband beyond a pretty dress and finally getting your girl?
From the day I got married, I understood what it really when the Bible talked about the church being the bride of Christ and Christ being the groom. Marriage is the most tangible picture of the gospel. It plays out right in front of our eyes, and it was never been to be perfect. Christ loves his bride in the midst of rebellion and wrong-doing. He sacrificed Himself for her. And the church, well, she is pursed by her groom. She doesn't always understand His ways, but she buckles down and presses in (on a good day), and yet sometimes she rebels, but the groom is always there. There is a fight against the world and all the other outside voices for a deep, covenant relationship with the other.
Unfortunately, the church's groom is perfect and infallible, so we don't always see the same results here on this earth. But the intent. Oh, the beautiful intent of marriage...
In Ephesians 5:22-33, we find instructions for wives and husbands. We see plainly that wives are to submit to their husbands as to the Lord. That doesn't mean that we are to be doormats, and that the husband should abuse his God-given headship. That means that we should yield ourselves to our husbands. We should run things past him before we do it, we should consider how it affects him, we should seek his counsel in a matter. We should be teammates. There is a reason that the husband is the head of the household, and I can guarantee it isn't to create resentment. It's to protect, to guard, to lead. In the verses following following the wives' instructions, there are instructions for the husband, to teach him how to lead and love like Christ does his bride. The husband is called to sacrifice and to point his bride toward Christ. He is called to love his bride selflessly, as if it were his own body, since the two are now one. He isn't to lord over her and rule with an iron fist. He is to guide her and protect her. He is to create a safe environment for love to grow and for grace to abound. These are boundaries for love and respect to grow on both sides.
It is an incredible thing, marriage. You are no longer your own. You are one flesh with another human being...a fallible human being. But God, in his infinite wisdom, set marriage up perfectly to bring him glory and unite two individuals as one under Him. We see this union in 1 Corinthians 7. We talk about everything: sex, divorce, singleness, and unity. We are called not to separate. Once we have the title of wife or husband, it one that should not be stripped from us. Yet, we give up when the going gets tough, and we don't fight for one another like Christ fights for his bride. We give ourselves over to passions and lack of self-control. We have the ability to destroy one another, but as we saw in Ephesians 5, we don't want to do that. We destroy ourselves as well.
(And as a side note: marriage is not the only way to glorify God. He has called some to singleness, and how precious that is! Do not look down on those that are single.)
See, as spouses, it is our job to bring honor to one another. As wives, we have the ability to bring honor to our husband by the way we act toward not him but others as well. While it is ok for us to look nice and presentable, it should not be our goal to show ourselves for other men. We should be seeking to bring honor and pleasure to our husbands. His attention should be enough for us. The truth is, our appearance isn't what should take precedence, rather it should be our hearts - our walk with God. That is ultimately how we will know to honor our husbands and our character will reflect that. Husbands, as well, should honor their wives in this way. All their gains at the gym should be for that wife of theirs, not recognition from other women...or to impress their fellow gym rats. His job is to protect physically and emotionally. Don't believe me? Check out 1 Peter 3:1-7.
The relationship of husbands and wives is one like no other. It's a tangible picture of the gospel and as such should not be taken lightly. Unfortunately, that's what we see today. We see this picture of the gospel being perverted and crushed. We see people leaving when the going gets tough, wives refusing to submit to the headship of their husband, husbands abusing wives, self-seeking instead of self-sacrifice. We see everything contrary to the way the Lord called us to do this marriage thing. How sad it is to see us so confused in how to honor God and each other as husband and wives.
That's why this month we will be resting on the institution of marriage. This is something that I am so passionate about because relationships have the power to destroy so much. I hope, with all that I am, that you will join us and that the Lord will be glorified in our marriages.
