True North: LIVE Free In MarriageНамуна

Hopefully, you are beginning to see that marriage has a much higher calling and a deeper purpose than to make you happy. It is actually God’s design to often make you uncomfortable in marriage which, in turn, leads you to trust and rely on Him even more. Realize that if God ever made two people to “complete each other” perfectly… then we would never need God. We would only need our spouses, and they would quickly become our god.

Understanding that God gave us marriage and our spouse, not to complete us, but to help us grow is a huge shift. So do yourself a favor and throw out the old Jerry Maguire movie if you still have it lying around. Think of marriage like this, “Marriage is” as John & Stasi Eldredge state in their marriage book LOVE & WAR, “a divine conspiracy.”

You most likely entered marriage with selfish motives. Almost all of us do. Let me prove it. Over the years I have had numerous couples answer this simple question: “Tell me why you got married.” Standard responses: “He/She makes me laugh, I can be myself around them, they make me want to be a better person,” or even “they make me want to be closer to God.”

All of the responses, even the last one, are rooted in selfishness. It is all rooted in how this person makes me feel. Even if your spouse makes you want to be closer to God, it is still about what they are doing for you. You may be thinking, “But those are some good things.” They are, and that is exactly why God uses them in this way. His divine conspiracy is to get you into marriage so He can then start working in you and out of you what He wants.

This does not mean God cannot accomplish things in you outside of marriage, but let’s be honest, no other relationship is as intimate, as exposing, as constant, or as risky as marriage is.

Take a few moments and ask God: “Why did I get married? What were my expectations of marriage? Have I been looking for my spouse to complete me?”