“What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”
This quote by Gary Thomas has caused an earthquake inside my soul. “If this were true, it would explain a lot,” I thought to myself. I have to be honest here. I got married because I wanted to be in a more intimate love story. But is that why God gave me Ann? It’s clear from scripture that marriage was a gift but ‘but did he give it to me primarily to make me happy?’ I honestly thought that living happily ever after was the point. But what if my deep conviction about marriage is wrong?
Convictions are not just formed like soundbites. Convictions are the very foundations of our behavior that are molded when we are young, and once they are set they are very hard to change. They are the underling structure that supports all of our inner motivations both good and bad. When the foundation of a building is off it eventually collapses under its own weight. Same is true about our lives. If our convictions about marriage are not formed on the bedrock that God intended they will topple.
Was marriage primarily made for happiness or holiness? So much about what I believed, desired, and anticipated concerning marriage was built on Ann and I finding fulfillment in each other. But what if God wants something more than our fulfillment? What if His desire is for us to become more pure, more powerful, more beautiful, and more like Him? Maybe marriage is supposed to be as hard as it is. Maybe staying married for a lifetime is supposed to sometimes seem as impossible as it is. If so, then I shouldn’t be so resistant to the hardships that being married causes. Maybe I shouldn’t just embrace the wonderful moments, but the difficult and humiliating moments as well. Maybe God intended us to struggle with our best interest in mind. I think a lot of marriages would be saved if this core conviction was as pervasive as the one I got married with.
Maybe you won’t find this idea as profound as I do, but I challenge you, married or not, to think hard about the convictions that you hold in your heart regarding marriage. If you are married, why did you get married? What is the purpose of your marriage? If you aren’t married, then why do you want to get married? Don’t quote a verse and give an intellectual answer, but rather think about what is in your heart about marriage. What convictions do you already live with? I mean, what if what you truly believe is wrong? What if God wanted to give you something better than happiness, but would require a difficult self-sacrificing journey to get it?
What if God gave me Ann to make me powerfully holy?
What if God gave Ann me to make her beautifully holy?
How would our lives be different if we believed this?
Ann flew to Denver for her friend’s birthday today, so I have the weekend to myself down here in Dallas. This should give me some good time to think and pray about these questions.
Thanks again for reading.
