“Marriage isn’t primarily about staying in love. It’s about keeping covenant with God.”
“The primary point of marriage isn’t to make you happy. It’s to make you holy.”
I could not agree more with these statements. I believe much of the tension a couple can face in marriage stems from using marriage as a means to happiness or focusing primarily on whether you feel “in love” with your spouse. Tension is inevitable when that is the case because the fact is your spouse will disappoint you at times, and your spouse will not always make you happy. Of course, the secular answer to these tensions is divorce and attempting to start the process all over to find someone who you do feel “in love” with and makes you happy. However, that leaves emotional carnage in its wake, and those who travel that path inevitably discover that, no matter what the feelings towards their next love interest, the “in love” sensation wanes over time as it loses its newness and likewise their new love interest fails to deliver on permanent happiness.
It’s a sick cycle that replays over and over and over, leaving many people to ditch marriage altogether in favor of cohabitation or, in extreme cases, so-called “open” relationships. Marriage, many believe, is something that is simply impossible to be happy in.
Unfortunately, I think Christians have unknowingly reinforced that very message by overemphasizing statements like the quotes above. While those statements are true, when they are the only ideas we push when it comes to being married and staying married, we neglect an equally important truth:
While the primary point of marriage is to make us holy, and staying married is primarily about obeying God, God also wants us to have healthy marriages that we are happy in and that grow deeper in love- not less in love- over time.
That does not mean we are to use marriage as a means to happiness. Only Jesus can make us happy. That doesn’t mean we should base whether we stay in marriage on whether we feel “in love”, because feelings do wane over time and divorce, with only a few exceptions, is wrong.
But what it does mean is this: God is a loving Father who wants the best for His children. As an imperfect dad, I want my son to be happy. How much more does our perfect Heavenly Father want us to be happy?
So much so that in Jesus’ most famous message, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus led off with telling people how to be happy in what is known as the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). The word “blessed” there is best understood as “happy.” In some of Jesus’ final words to His disciples, He told them they would be blessed, or happy, if they did what He commanded (John 13:17).
God wants us to be happy!
That doesn’t mean everything will always be hunky-dory with rainbows and sunshine. But the happiness that comes from obeying Jesus supersedes our circumstances and is something we can experience regardless of our circumstances.
We are even commanded to be always be joyful (rejoice)! (1 Thessalonians 5:16, Philippians 4:4).
Why would we think that somehow our marriages, then, are destined to be places that we endure more than enjoy?
Read the entirety of Song of Songs (AKA Song of Solomon)- that describes what marital love and intimacy should be like. It is anything but passionless, dutiful, and dull. It’s exciting, full of passion, warmth, and love that “many waters cannot quench” (Song of Songs 8:8).
This makes sense if we understand that marriage is to be a picture of Christ and the Church (Ephesians 5:32). The love Christ has for the Church and the Church should have for Christ is not emotionless and driven by duty. It is warm, passionate, and unfailing.
A healthy marriage should have that kind of love in it. In fact, a marriage that lacks that kind of love simply isn’t healthy (but it’s often excused as “maturity” or “the end of the puppy love phase”).
Yes- puppy love fades. But healthy, mature love is even more powerful, even more passionate, and fiercely committed. Healthy and mature love pursues unrelentingly, serves diligently, and desires your spouse above every other relationship except Jesus.
Healthy marriages have spouses that can’t wait to get home instead of longing to get out of the house, because healthy marriages have spouses that long to be with each other.
Healthy marriages are something we enjoy; not something we endure. And this is how God intends it.
NOW: we don’t get to the enjoy part without becoming more holy; the more we become like Jesus, the more we will be like Jesus towards our spouse in the love we have for our spouse. So, yes- holiness, or becoming like Jesus, is the primary thrust.
But becoming more holy in our marriage should lead to a deeper level of happiness in our marriage. When it doesn’t, it means the marriage is not yet healthy and one- or more likely, both – spouses have a great need to let Jesus work in them to make them more like Him so they can showcase the love of Christ to the world through their marriage.
And that love should be something others look at and say “I want that!”
Let’s not unwittingly reinforce the world’s disillusionment with marriage by neglecting the fact that God wants our marriages to be place of joy. Yes, they should primarily be about becoming like Christ and our motive for remaining married should be honoring Christ. But at the same time, they should also be places of great joy and deep, obvious love for each other.
I think if the world saw more of that type marriage from Christians, the world would begin to rediscover the value of marriage- and discover that at the root of truly healthy marriage is Christ.