Marriage 101 – The
entire point of it all
Marriage is a complex journey and
one I feel most unqualified to write about! It is the one institution for which
we get a certificate we haven’t earned yet. It is the one place where you
experience extreme heights of joy and depths of misery. In marriage, you
realize that the tools that got you into it barely sustain you in it. It is in
equal parts most pleasurable and heart wrenching, just the one marriage.
I’ve heard some people say ‘if I could come back again I would marry
the same person’. Others pray for another life just to escape the one they
got! Some try it for a few years and check out while others celebrate 20, 30,
40 even 50 years together. Some marry once and swear off it, others try and try
and try again in the hope that they just might find ‘the one’? The battles of
the sexes rage on – ‘women marry better, no men are better’, and so we go on
and on and on and on, completely missing the entire point of why we got in
there in the first place.
Now before I get to the entire
point, I must get this controversial issue off my chest just so you know where
I stand. In my mind and no matter how you got married – I believe whomever you
are married to is God’s perfect will for you! That’s such an extremist view
especially in 2013, but I’m sorry, that’s just what I believe.
Does that mean then that the
husband who perchance hits you from time to time is God’s will for you? – I do
believe he is, but his assignment in your life does not include the blows he
freely doles out. Does that mean then that the wife who curses you like a fish-wife
daily eroding your self-esteem is God’s purposes for your lives.
It takes great maturity to stay
balanced, happy and satisfied in marriage. Unfortunately, maturity isn’t
something we start out with when we get married. In fact maturity is something
we develop within marriage and developing maturity is a very painful process. So
imagine 2 immature people in close proximity to one another struggling to build
their own institution from which their family and community would be raised. There’s
bound to be pain. There’s bound to be mistakes – sometimes very costly mistakes
that bring sorrow and grief. There’s also bound to be success if they keep
growing and do not give up along the way.
Marriage is a completely spiritual
journey lived out in the flesh. That contradiction again contributes to its
complexity and the reason why so many get weary and give up! The bible says
that the
carnal mind cannot appreciate the things of the Spirit of God because they are
foolishness to him, nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.
(1 Corinthians 2 verse 14) And herein lies the entire point of this marriage
business.
Is marriage ‘a thing of the spirit of God’?
Absolutely yes! Marriage is an exhibition of God’s devotion, sacrifice and
commitment to the church. He takes time in Ephesians 5 verses 22 to 32 to
express this to us. Especially verses 30 and 31 where He says ‘For we are
members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. For this reason, a man
shall leave His father and mother and be joined to His wife and the two shall
become one flesh.
So is the reason for leaving and
cleaving (marriage) clear then?
The reason by which we claim
membership to His body – His flesh & His bone? Do you see then how
spiritual marriage is? It is the exhibition of His relationship with the church
– that we can mirror in our daily marital lives, the joining of Christ to the
church in His own quest to present to Himself, a church without spots or
wrinkles or any such thing….
Indeed it is a spiritual thing, the
carnal mind cannot appreciate it.
I’m starting these series because I
deeply feel many of us (me also) are uneducated about the purpose of marriage
and hopefully through these series gain some understanding of what the Lord
requires of us. Is there a place for romance in marriage? Yes! Is there a place
for that heart-thumping feeling when your eyes meet across a room? Oh yes!! Is
there a place for the passions in our bodies and our desires for sex? By all
means yes!!! But is that all marriage is about such that when those things do
not seem to work we exit?
So what’s the conclusion in 101
today?
·
Dancing together in marriage takes time – maturity
helps both partners get the rhythm right.
·
Whomever you are married to – good, bad and ugly is
God’s perfect will for you.
·
Marriage is a spiritual journey we live out in the
physical – journeying well then demands we become familiar with both the
physical and spiritual territories that define our pathway.
Bottom line – If it’s tough right
now, don’t give up! I don’t know if it will ever get better, but what does giving
up mean then to ‘the reason’? Examine yourself – how many times have you
bruised and cheated on the Lord? How many times has He given up on you? I’m just
saying that if you’ve never hurt or disappointed God, and marriage is hurting and
disappointing you, then maybe you can leave it behind – I’m just saying (he who
has not sinned should cast the 1st stone). Otherwise – do like Jesus
– forgive as our heavenly father forgives us also. Then keep believing…
Id Ogufere
July 2013
