God’s Revelation in Marriage

“Marriage doesn’t create problems. It reveals them. You bring unresolved stuff into it.”

~Rick Warren

Another way of putting it:

The institution of marriage,

Is one we shouldn’t disparage,

The concept we cannot really blame,

Instead it’s our stuff,

That makes things rough,

That, not marriage, is our shame.

In some ways it can be taken that God has a sense of humour when he puts two seemingly similar people together in marriage, by their collective will. They, of course, discover that they are much more dissimilar than they thought they were under the intense scrutiny of marital conditions.

It can be seen that marriage is an institution of discipleship, for we don’t verily grow unless we are placed in a seedbed of suffering or in social settings. And marriage is the ultimate social setting designed to highlight problems we ordinarily would shun the knowledge of.

If the problems are dealt with, the couple grows—individually and, possibly, collectively. But if the selfish contains continue no one grows and the marriage is forever fragile, throbbing in dynamics of resentment, and potent for damaging lives.

The Real Pride Of Marriage – Growth

There isn’t much sense in celebrating silver and gold and diamond anniversaries if the marriage hasn’t been a beacon for unity and selflessness. Under the marriage sits a family, presumably, and all of that family are products of the marriage.

The unresolved problems of the couple’s marriage do indefinitely ripple through the lives of succession. What might be believed to be containable within the family home never is. Those problems that surface in secret are always revealed, eventually, in plain and public daylight. The biggest pity is these problems live within people.

God has a purpose in marriage: for the fulfilment of love and the honouring of truth.

Manifesting Love And Upholding Truth

The successful married couple has not decades in the bank so much, but a habit of manifesting love throughout their relationship, which burgeons through their lives, and a testimony for upholding truth.

They are ruled by love and truth. Love and truth are bigger than them individually and collectively. They are prepared to fight for love and truth—which is never a fight of aggression—because they know the short-term pain of growth provides a long-term gain of prosperity.

Successful married couples understand what brokenness they bring into their marriages. And they are compelled to identify and account for their respective problems.

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When love and truth abide, marriage is a beacon for life. Problems are part of the equation in testing love and revealing truth. Problems, therefore, are to be celebrated as opportunities. Problems are God’s stimuli for growth.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.