Now I'm not talking about any part of the wedding itself, but what happens when two people are married.
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.(Genesis 2:24, New King James Version)
First, we were two separate people. First, we had separate goals, plan, and desires for life; then those goals, plans, and desires began to meld. I yield some things to my wife, and she yielded some things to me. At other points we found our two separate desires blending into a single thinking that neither of us expected. Then we found only one person; two bodies, two minds, and two hearts working as one. We've now been blended thoroughly that it would be impossible to separate us.
Now don't get me wrong on this one: we are not always perfectly one. We disagree, we argue, and occasionally there is yelling. However, we strive for this perfect unity. For we have the guidance of scripture to tell us how to do this.
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:21-33, New International Version)
The first step, often missed, is submitting to one another. This isn't letting my wife walk over me, or me walk over her. This is me putting my wants aside for my wife's needs. It is the two of us thinking about what the other needs, first, before everything else. There is another layer to submitting, it is preferring the other person. I prefer Jesus to myself, so I would rather do what Jesus wants than myself. I prefer my wife, so I would rather do what she wants. We submit by putting our wants behind the other's needs, and preferring the other's wants to our own. Again, we're not perfect here, but we try.
Verse 25 now sets a high standard for the behavior of husbands. How high? The highest! Husbands are told to love their wives the way Christ loved the Church. How did Jesus love the Church? Jesus was beaten, spat on, nailed on a cross, and died. All this to wash His Church from its sins. That is how much Jesus loved the Church. Men, are you prepared to die to give your wife what she needs? Well, you probably won't have to; but you may have to give up guys night, that tool/toy you "need," or an hour of sleep. Are you prepared to step up?
Now women, verse 22 is probably the most maligned verse in the Bible, unless it's verse 23. Let's understand what it says, nothing. Verse 21 told us that every Christian should submit to every other Christian. Verse 22 says to do the same thing for your husband as for anyone else. Your husband should be laying down his life for you, like Christ did, every day; and you can't take advantage of that. Now verse 23 provides the second bemoaned statement, the husband's headship. Start off by reading Mark 10:35-45. Here Jesus describes what leadership should look like: serving. Again, your husband should lead you by serving you, and you can't take advantage of that.
I know what I'm going to get from some women, and some men too. They are going to say, "I will do that when he/she does his/her part." The Bible doesn't give you that option. No where does it allow the husband to give himself up after his wife has submitted. No where does it say the wife only submits when the husband act like Jesus. If he waits for her and she waits for him, it will never happen. We do our parts first, especially if the other is falling down on the job. Remember, Jesus died for you before you repented of your sin.
There you have it: the greatest mystery of marriage and how to keep it. So what happens when we don't take care of a marriage.
When you don't foster your marriage, your heart becomes hard toward your spouse. This hardness starts as ignoring your spouse, then it becomes being mean toward your spouse. Then your relationship falls apart.
2 The Pharisees came and asked Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” testing Him.
3 And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?”
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.”
5 And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
(Mark 10:2-9, New King James Version)
What is required to split a marriage: spiritual violence. You can't sign a piece of paper and be separate. This melding of two people is deep, so deep that you cannot pull two whole people out of a marriage. If you separate them, you are left with two broken people. First the relationship must be mangled, smashed, and crushed.
The good news is that we worship an awesome God, "who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did." (Romans 4:17b, New King James Version) He can rebuild anything from nothing. He can make something dead live again. He can take two broken people and make a marriage from them again.
Are you willing to give Him a shot and trust Him?
Are you willing to do what a marriage needs?
Are you willing to love first?
One final note: Dearest, I love you. I promise to strive to love you the way Christ loves you. I will fail, but I will strive.
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