My parents celebrate this week 50 years of
marriage. The reaching of this milestone has got me thinking more about
marriage itself and what it means to have a long and fruitful commitment to one
another. Marriage has always meant life-long commitment from my vantage
point. I recognize I am in a very rare category in that my parents and
both sets of my grandparents celebrated 50 years of marriage. What seems
normal to me and to my experience is sadly not very common today.
I have heard more than one person say jokingly, ‘you would have to add up all
my marriages to get to 50 years.’ It is true that unforeseen circumstances
prevent some people from reaching this milestone; but it is also true that some
of the circumstances preventing long marriages are avoidable.
The secular world tends to see marriage in overly simplistic
terms; therefore it is viewed as “easy come, easy go.” The pain of a
splitting up has been the subject of many country songs and has kept many
counselors employed. In a throw away culture, nothing tends to be valued
as it should be and human relationships of every kind are no exception. After
being a pastor for 22 years and counseling with a lot of people struggling in
their marriages and with many whose marriages have ended, I can unequivocally
say the number one factor in marital struggles and marital endings is linked
back to selfishness; selfishness, on the part of one partner or both.
Selfishness takes many different forms, but at its root it is putting the wants
and desires of oneself first, at the expense of the other partner in the
marriage. This is why people have affairs, why they spend money they do
not have, this is why they indulge in the appetites of the flesh such as
excesses of alcohol, drugs, even food. Pride tells people they can get
away with what they are doing and that they even “deserve” the thing they
desire, even if it looks or seems wrong. The world’s way is Satan’s
way. Satan’s pride led to his fall long ago and he gets others to fall
because of that same problem of giving place to pride.
A good marriage has God at its centerpiece. Why would anyone not want it
to be so? God invented marriage and God knows the best formula for a long
and healthy marriage. When Jesus is Lord of a home and Lord over the
lives of the individuals living in that home then a healthy marriage is the
outgrowth. But if pride, self-indulgent behavior, narcissism, arrogance,
etc. enter in, the marriage becomes more and more jeopardized. Satan has
many sneaky ways to enter in, and often by the time a couple figures out what
is going on, it is too late.
Satan loves to mock God at every turn and when he can harm mankind, God’s prize
creation, he does so with glee. Destroying marriages are one of his
specialties therefore he goes after them with gusto. He salivates when he
sees an opportunity to drive a wedge between couples and turn their
relationship into a tug-o-war. In so doing he makes a laughing stock of
people made in the image of God, individuals for which Christ died and shed His
blood, and the institution of marriage itself which pictures Christ’s relationship
with His church.
It is easy to fall for Satan’s lies and people fall for them each and every
day. A good marriage is not easy, but takes work. Satan wants you
to be lazy when it comes to marriage and when the marriage fails to blame your
partner or perhaps even God. Marriages most commonly fail because the
person in the mirror does not look to the author of the Bible. When marriage is
done God’s way, there is nothing better. When a couple can celebrate one
another, their children, and most of all, the God they serve then all is
well!
In Christ,
Dr. Allen Raynor, Pastor
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