A funny line about marriage from the great Rodney
Dangerfield. Marriage is full of amazing times and amazingly bad times too.
There isn’t a perfect marriage just like there isn’t a perfect human (Other than
Jesus). So how do we fall into false ideas about marriage?
Hailee and I have had many good times in marriage and had
times we needed help. Marriage isn’t about being perfect, there will always be mistakes.
One of the saddest states of marriage is when a couple or spouse isn’t willing
to go to counseling or listen to what a counselor says. I have heard this many
times. We can handle the issues on our own or the problem is with them rather than
me. I can honestly say Hailee and I went to counseling in the first year of our
marriage and it was my fault. I had to own up to things I was not doing right
in our marriage and admit to that. Without admitting I needed counseling,
things would not have gotten any better. Even the best marriages I know could
use help from time to time.
Paul shared a quote about marriage when talking about the
law God created and the authority he has over man. Romans 7:2-3…
“For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband
as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law
of marriage. So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still
alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released
from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.”
Going back in the Old Testament, you were married and one of
the acts of showing you were married was the act of sex. When two become one
can be justified as sex, while we aren’t given a clean straight Bible verse on
what made a marriage, sex was part of the consummation.
Imagine for those who have had multiple partners you could
be considered married to your first love and cheat on him/her with everyone
else. Weird enough for you? Paul talks about a women whose husband is not dead
(The phrase till death do you part comes to mind) and she marries/have sex with
another man, it’s an affair. Only if her husband dies is it legal to marry
again. People have taken marriage in a different way.
God gave us marriage, not arrogance. Marriage is full of
mistakes because of us. We have done things before we are married, while we are
married or maybe in our second marriages and beyond that are wrong. I have seen
people get divorced over not being happy anymore (No fairy tale marriage
exists) and almost every reason in between. If you think once we are married my
spouse will change, most likely not. More likely is the fact your spouse will
let their guard down and be a little worse. Yet there is beauty in marriage.
I thank God for my wife everyday. She is wonderful, she
looks beautiful, puts up with all of my faults (There are many) and encourages
me when I feel down. I thank God for giving me Hailee in marriage. A great
marriage can make you do amazing things you never thought of yourself as doing
(One of the many, I never thought I would get a Master’s degree). A bad
marriage can make you miserable.
What do you want in life to be happy or miserable? When Paul
mentions about marriage in the verse about, I would imagine some people being
in marriages they weren’t happy in and hopeful that there spouse might die or
they were looking forward to ending things with them. Is marriage worth
fighting for? I believe so, but do you? Do you think is marriage is worth putting
your own selfish desires aside for better ones?
If you are in a relationship or a marriage and it’s not
going well get help. If you have a broken leg you go to the doctors. If you
have a broken marriage do the same. Get help, a great marriage can fulfill your
greatest desires as humans. Is that something you want? If you are married what
is something you could do for your spouse today to help your relationship out? If
your relationship is not going well, don’t be stubborn like a donkey, get help.
Have a great day.
