Introduction:

Marriage. What a big subject. I suppose there is nothing more common and yet more misunderstood than marriage. The young look forward to it and the old look back upon it. For both and for all it serves as a point of reference for nearly everything important currently and throughout their lifetime. In success or failure, pain or pleasure, and in dreams that “coulda been”, “woulda been” and “shoulda been if only…” are like indelible markers along countless forks in the road.

Never more true than in thoughts of marriage, “Hope springs eternal”, the saying goes, but high hopes do not great success guarantee. It takes little to stir up hope. It takes much to acquire in good measure that for which we hope. According to current statistics in this country, hope regarding a mate is often dashed. After years of dreaming, planning and “being sure”, for the typical couple there is a fifty per cent chance, a mere flip-of-the-coin odds, that the happy dreamers coming down the aisle will part ways sometime in the future. Passion and hope may propel us, but that force is equaled only by the pain that almost inevitably shows up “too late” to warn us and to save us. Is there a way for us to escape the odds and walk in certainty?

Some give up the first day of marriage and some give up after several decades. Of the fifty per cent remaining, a small number seem to be actually happy with their marriage. One survey to which women recently responded indicated that only one in ten wives even wanted to see their spouse again “in heaven”. Christians, in one survey I read, measured a higher rate of divorce than others in the general population.
How can something so important as one of the main driving forces within us be so difficult to handle? Is there assurance your marriage is “going to work”? Are you bound to become “just another number” in a survey? Is there something else, something more than this?
Before looking into the direction and purpose of this study, let’s consider a few more things. In the natural view of “selecting a mate”, centered on biological and psychological behavior, marriage is the result of hormones, natural attraction and passion. But, if this is the basis of union, the same passion that takes us into marriage with feelings of lustful love may take us out with passionate feelings of betrayal, misunderstanding, disrespect and anger.

So, we search on. Book stores called “Christian” and secular alike, are crowded with books on marriage, on being a wife, on being a husband, on being a parent. Books spill over the shelves with surveys, checklists to help “fix” each other in marital discord, case histories, counselor techniques and guidelines, case studies, cultural and sociological affects on marriage, analysis of needs in a relationship, how to listen and how to express needs and concerns. Many newspapers typically have several columnists who write about marriage problems, girl problems, boy problems, family and extended family problems. Undoubtedly, many of these books and endeavors have on some level been helpful to many. Nevertheless, statistics stare us down, and many among us have suffered much even after giving to their marriages “everything they have”. Is there not another dimension for which we might seek? I believe there is.

No matter what the subject is, wisdom would instruct us to begin with God. Never is this more important and never is this less realized than in the matter of marriage. Such a thought seems to go counter to every thing we have learned and feel. Even when dealt with by traditional “Christian” means, it is easy to spend much time in counseling, load our shelves with books, and in the end go home alone, full of hurt, feeling hopeless and at last giving in to inevitable misery or outright failure. What then, should we do? How can we deal with this matter?

Continued