One of my former students asked me to write about marriage. I’m not sure if what follows is what she wanted, but here are my thoughts after celebrating eighteen years of marriage to David earlier this month.
Like most things in my life, it all comes back to a particular book. At the center of my major or minor decisions, every paramount event, every significant season of my life, and the quiet and still days is the Book of God’s spoken Word. I remember as a kid receiving my very first Bible at the front of my home church. It was a leather Bible a church elder handed me the Sunday I became a member of the church after completing the Communicant’s Class weeks prior. I cried when he handed me my very own Bible. I was overcome with holding the Word of God knowing that I could know my God through this book. I became serious about reading God’s Word when I was in eighth grade. Right around that time, my grandparents gave me the NIV Student Bible, the featured image for this post. A few years into my marriage, David had the once emerald green worn out leather Bible my grandparents gave me rebound in brown leather with my married name. He said the hardest part about giving me the gift was getting my Bible away from me for a few days without me noticing it being gone. For thirty glorious years now, I have marked dates and passages in my Bible where God has spoken directly to me through his written Word. Like Jeremiah, I eat God’s Word, and it is my heart’s joy and delight (Jeremiah 15:16). Like John, I understand what it is for God’s Word to be sweet as honey when you first devour it, but then how it turns your stomach bitter as you begin to live it out, speak it, and teach it and receive indignation from doing so (Revelation 10:9-11).
When it comes to marriage, this Book that brought tears to my eyes as a little girl still leads me through the valleys and mountaintop experiences in the most intimate earthly relationship I will ever know. God’s Word is at the center of my marriage. It has to be. Otherwise, I try to make David into someone he was never meant to be for me, my Savior. David is wonderful. He’s easy to live with, fun to be around, supportive, and loves me more than I deserve, but he’s not Jesus. When I look to him to be more to me than he was meant to be, it is not fair to him, it is (I would imagine for him) highly unattractive of me, and it is usually because I have forgotten what he speaks in his Book. The Bible tells me through the prophets, the parables, and Revelation who my true Bridegroom is. I fall into danger and my own sin when I forget that Jesus is my Bridegroom for eternity.
One of my all female classes was recently asking questions about dating and marriage. We were studying the Ten Commandments, and they were wrapping their minds (and I pray hearts) around Jesus teaching in Matthew 5 that lusting after someone is committing adultery. The root of their questions, very appropriate to their age, had to do with what they could get away with. They wanted to know if they could they still think a guy was hot, or if they could they still admire a guy’s abs. I was trying to encourage them to change their perspective from ‘What can I get away with?‘ to ‘Let me focus on my true love, Christ, because he is my ultimate Bridegroom.’ One girl exclaimed, “That sounds so boring!” I thanked her for her vulnerability and honesty and said – What’s actually boring is the pitiful pleasures of the here and now which we settle for that will never satisfy you and me. What’s actually boring is the hot guy and his abs because they are temporary, but Christ is eternal. We are far more bored now than we realize. What’s ahead is the farthest thing from boring. What’s ahead is life as it was always meant to be lived. We cannot even begin to comprehend eternity now because even the exciting things now are actually boredom compared to what we will be experiencing.
This world has warped our thinking and made us believe that the Lord is the one who is not fulfilling. So, how do we combat the skewed lens the world places over our eyes to keep us from seeing clearly? We have to fight to not lose his Word. We get warnings all throughout God’s Word of what happens when we lose his Word and do not bury it in our hearts. One story of God’s lost Word is told to us in 2 Kings 22 and again in 2 Chronicles 34. Josiah, king of Judah, was a good king and reformed his territory by purging Judah and Jerusalem of the high places they had built to idols and false gods. In that time of reform, Josiah sent workers to repair and restore the temple, and it was the high priest who found the Book of the Law in the temple. Most commentators believe the Book that was found was Deuteronomy or a part of it. Regardless of which part of God’s Word was found, the point was that it had gone missing. It was no longer buried in the hearts of the kings (as was commanded in Deuteronomy 17) but was buried under the rumble and remains of the temple. It had been removed from its rightful place of authority, and when we read the OT stories (or live our current realities), we see the decay that happens in the lives of God’s people when we do not live by his Word.
The high priest gave the Book of the Law he found to the secretary. The secretary read it then he went to King Josiah and read the book in his presence. The king then sent his men to inquire of the Lord on his behalf, so the men spoke to a prophetess, and the prophetess said,
16 ‘This is what the Lord says: I am going to bring disaster on this place and its people, according to everything written in the book the king of Judah has read. 17 Because they have forsaken me and burned incense to other gods and aroused my anger by all the idols their hands have made, my anger will burn against this place and will not be quenched.’ 18 Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: 19 Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. 20 Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.’
Our Bridegroom is a jealous God, and rightly so. Not only has he redeemed us, we also came from him. We are his not just by choice, but by design as well. Disaster comes when we forsake him. Yet, he is merciful to those whose hearts are responsive to his Word, to those who humble themselves before him, and to those to weep in his presence. I have dear friends and family who have heartbreaking stories of abuse in their past marriages, marriages that have ended in divorce, marriages that have ended in the death of their spouse, and marriages that never happened that they are still hoping and praying for. The women I know who bear these stories understand this – their ultimate marriage is to Jesus, he fulfills and completes them. They have not lost God’s Word, but hold on to it. Tightly. We all keep moving forward wherever we are in our earthly marriages because we know of the One marriage for which we were made that will last forever.
Keeping our hearts responsive to God’s Word and not our own agendas until our Bridegroom’s return – this is what centers our lives.