Thoughts on Marriage, Part 2

The second lesson that I learned is that the Christian ritual of marriage was designed to teach us about God.

Just as God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one, a man and a woman become one when they unite in marriage. (See Genesis 2:24). This means that when I decide to get married, I am no longer just one person. While I certainly have the right to be and to do anything I want, and so does my husband, if we are living as "one", then we will make our decisions based on the good of our relationship, not on our own selfish desires.

In addition, marriage teaches us about the character of God. Jesus calls the church his "bride" throughout the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God used the life of a prophet, named Hosea, to teach us about his character. In this strange story, God tells Hosea to take a prostitute, Gomer, as his wife. Hosea marries her, and she repeatedly runs off with other men, pursuing her own desires, making her own living, independent of Hosea's needs, and breaking his heart repeatedly. He continues to seek after her, and he even buys her back with his own money. This is so like us and our relationship with God. He asks us for 1/10th of our money and 1/7th of our time. But we choose to do things our own way, to seek after our own desires. And he patiently runs after us, buying us back with his own blood.


When we give up our individual rights to do what is right for our families, we learn about sacrifice, as Jesus gave up his rights as the King of Kings to live on earth and take on our sins and shed his blood for us. When our spouses hurt us deeply, and we forgive them, we learn about how much it must hurt God when we turn from him, and what it must be like for him to forgive us.


Marriage is certainly about love, and relationship, but it is so much more than that. It is about trusting God, about understanding bigger truths that we would otherwise know. It is not a relic from days gone by, but a lasting sacriment, to teach us holy things.

Thoughts on Marriage, Part 1

Over the past few weeks, the same topic has come up in several conversations:  marriage.  What do I think of gay marriage?  Should a believer be allowed to divorce an unbeliever?  How do you know if your marriage is really over?

Now, I am not a marriage counsellor, or even a counsellor at all, for that matter, but I have life experience, and I have gleaned much wisom from the older folks I care for in the nursing home.  Moreover, I have read the Bible, and it has much to say on this topic, so I indulged these conversations.

Two things that I have learned, I have decided to share here.  First, I think our culture has, for the most part, given up on marriage.  it used to be that when two people would fall in love, they would promise to be together "for better or for worse," and that would settle it.  The idea of divorce wasn't even part of the equation.  I find it ironic that today, the homosexuals are begging for the right to get married, and the Christians are throwing it away, as a useless tradition that no longer has any value.

I think that we have lost sight of what marriage is all about.  Like we do in every other arena of life these days, we think it is all about us.  What am I going to get out of this relationship?  As soon as it no longer meets my needs, I am done with it, and I move on to the next thing that may bring me happiness.  News flash:  Our spouses were not created by God to meet our every need.  That empty or lonely spot we have within us is meant to be filled with a relationship with God.  No human being, no matter how much we love them or they love us, will ever fill that void.  We cannot get our needs met by anyone else.

The older folks understood this.  When they got married, they knew they were going to face trials.  They expected hardships.  They stuck together and worked through the hard times, and they were closer and had a stronger love for each other each time they overcame another obstacle.  If you ask me, we give up much too easily.  If we would stick it out in the hard times, we would not only gain a better relationship, but we would develop skills that could help us in every area in our lives.

So, lessen # 1 is "never give up."

Once Upon a time

I have been watching a new tv show during prime time this season, called, "Once upon a time."  This is outside of my normal viewing genre, but I was intrigued by the storyline, and now I am hooked.  If you haven't seen it, it is basically a twist on all the fairy tale stories that we all grew up with.  The characters have been taken from their world to ours, their century to ours, and the stories are a bit different than I remember them....

Last week's episode was thought provoking.  In this episode, Rumpelstiltskin has a son.  The son hates seeing the changes that have taken place in his father's life, due to the magic that he inherited, which began to eat away at him, changing his heart toward evil.  The son searches for a cure, but instead is offered an opportunity to take himself and his father out of their world into a world without magic, where the two would be able to live a "normal" life.

What a twist!  Don't we all too often pray to God for a miracle, a bit of magic if you will, to fix our problems?  Wouldn't we rather have a pill, potion, or magic spell that would take away our pain, rather than to have to face life's battles the hard way?

But I praise God that this is not how life is for us.  We do have to struggle, but it is in the struggles that we learn and grow.  I praise God that he is consistent and unchanging.  Long ago, he put the laws of nature in place, so that we don't have to worry that some enemy could come after us and turn us instantly into toads!  We can count on gravity, cause and effect, and all the other laws of physics as we navigate this world.

I wouldn't have it any other way.