What We Need Most From Marriage

What if one of the things we need is
something we don’t want?

One of the things I love about marriage
is that it can lead us to places where we will be all but forced to rely on God
like we never have before.

My friend Rett gulped deeply when the
doctor told him that his wife Kristy had to have a particular operation
that could keep her in bed for several days and require special care for a few
weeks after that.

Rett
is a cognitive man, a brilliant lawyer, but he tends to live in his head with
concepts and arguments and a quick wit. He makes a good living and can hire
people to do what he doesn’t want to do. He’s not used to playing the role of a
nurse, which is what he knew he would have to be doing for his wife.

On
the way home from the doctor’s office, Rett blurted out, “I don’t know if I can
do this!”

“What
do you mean?” Kristy asked. “I’m
the one getting the operation!”

“I
mean, I don’t know if I can be that low maintenance. I’m high maintenance. Tank
(their dog) is high maintenance. The only reason our marriage works is because
you’re low maintenance and you hold everything together.”

Marriage
is a long journey—long enough so that eventually even the lower maintenance
spouse is going to be at least temporarily high maintenance. While many might
see this as a curse to bear, this actually can be seen as a gift if the
normally higher maintenance spouse views such seasons as opportunities to step
up and switch seats, becoming the primary caregiver, perhaps even becoming a
different kind of person.

Ruts
are comfortable, but limiting. They stifle personal and spiritual growth.
Marriage sometimes forces us out of those ruts so that we are invited to grow
in areas in which we may not want to grow, but in which God is eager for us to
grow.

In
case you’re wondering, Kristy gave Rett a glowing report about stepping up,
though she admitted he was rather relieved when one of her relatives finally
flew into town and took over.

Here’s
the key: marriage presented Rett with a situation he would never have chosen on
his own. Rett didn’t choose marriage to learn how to become a nurse—part of his
attraction to Kristy was the fact that she was so low maintenance—but that’s
what he had to do now that he was a husband. Marriage called him to step up
outside of himself, depend on Christ, and in the process become more like
Christ.

Rett
followed and appreciated Christ the teacher, but Jesus wasn’t just a teacher.
Christ touched the lepers, healed a woman who had been bleeding for years, and
regularly made time out of His schedule to attend to the physical needs of
those He loved. To put it in language Rett can now understand: Christ on earth
wasn’t just cognitive;
He was also caring.
For Rett to become more like Christ, he had to grow in the same area. He’s got
the cognitive down—you’re not going to trick him with false doctrine—but can he
learn to care?

Ask yourself, what if marriage is
supposed to be difficult on occasion so that we are forced to learn to rely on
God’s Holy Spirit and become a different kind of person?

What if God is more concerned about our
“practical atheism”—saying we believe in Him but rarely relying on Him—than He
is about how easy our marriage might be at any given moment?

What if half of our frustration in
marriage results from the fact that we want it to be easier but God wants us to
become more mature?

Consider what your
marriage may be calling you to today that you don’t feel capable of doing on
your own. Instead of saying, “This is just too hard,” or “This just isn’t my
gifting or calling,” or “That’s not why I got married,” invite God to transform
you into a different kind of person.

Be bold; hold God
to His word: “Lord, You promise to give the weary strength. I am bone weary.
You promise to give power to one who lacks it. I feel powerless. You promise to
give the ignorant wisdom. I am clueless about what to do.”

Instead of
running from the difficulties of marriage, let’s allow them to teach us the
glory of spiritual dependence on God.
Let’s accept the invitation to become a different kind of person. It may not be
what we want of our marriage, but it may, in given seasons, be what we
most need from our marriage.

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