Married for a Mission: The Surprising Path to a Renewed Marriage
When
Kevin Miller asked his future wife Karen to marry him, her response was a quick
and enthusiastic yes. Karen would later admit that perhaps she could have given
a little more thought to such a monumental life decision: “When Kevin popped
the question no one asked us a bigger question: ‘Why do you want to get
married?’ At the time, the question
would have bordered on blasphemy. After
all, Kevin and I were in love—anyone could see that. We shared a commitment to Christ. Who needed better reasons than those?”
Just
a few years into marriage, the Millers experienced the common listlessness that
seeps into many marriages: “Isn’t there more to life than this? We still
love each other, but now that we’ve found each other, is this really all there
is?”
Some
couples face these questions by thinking that perhaps they married the wrong
person. If they had
married someone else, the thinking goes, the marriage would still be exciting
and fulfilling. But the Millers found that what they lacked most as a couple
wasn’t compatibility, it was purpose.
When
a pastor asked them to take over the church youth group, the Millers agreed,
not realizing how difficult these adolescents were. Writes Karen, “The group
literally drove us to our knees. Before
each event, we began to pray for the youth and for ourselves. The group also forced Kevin and me to talk
more than we had since we dated. We
needed to plan together and present a united front to the kids. As we did, we found out a lot about each
other.”
Here’s
what I love about joint ministry: you think you know all about a person. You’ve
been together for years and it’s easy to assume you’ve got everything figured
out; there’s nothing more to share, nothing more to discover, nothing more to
talk about. Ministry of any significant kind raises a whole host of other
issues; you see a side of yourself and each other that you never knew existed. Sometimes,
this can be inspiring, but other times, it can be outright scary. The Millers
attest that some of the challenges they faced and disagreements they suffered
over how best to proceed at times felt like it would tear them apart as a
couple. But it made them talk, it gave them a new reason to pray together,
and in doing both, a new intimacy was born.
Because
our ministry invites the presence of the Holy Spirit, it can also foster new
respect. Two good friends
of ours asked Lisa and me to do the premarital counseling for their daughter
and her future husband. At my home church, I typically do most of these
sessions alone, but Lisa wanted to a part of the conversations with our
friends’ daughter. The first time we met we hit on some foundational issues right
at the start and spent a good bit of time talking over them. Afterwards, Lisa
took my hand and looked at me in a new way.
“What?”
I asked.
“You’re pretty good at this,” she said and hugged my arm.
The
Holy Spirit is pretty good at this; all I did was offer myself for His
use. But if that offering created a new respect from my wife, I wasn’t going to
complain…
Notice
that this respect came from doing the ministry together. I have done hours upon
hours of premarital counseling without Lisa there; it’s when we joined in
the effort that our own marriage benefited. The Millers experienced the
same thing.
“The biggest surprise was that through the
process something good was happening to our marriage. We were working together at something. When we failed, at least it was our failure;
and when we succeeded, it was our success. During most of each workday, we were miles
apart. But when we led the youth group,
we were arm-in-arm and heart-to-heart.”
Kevin
and Karen gained a new respect for each other as they saw each other’s gifts put
to use, and they stumbled on a great discovery: “What a puzzle! That youth group ministry, which by all
rights should have pulled our marriage apart, actually bonded it in a new level
of intimacy. Without trying to work on
our marriage at all, it had become richer and deeper.”
The Third Hunger
The
Millers discovered what they call “a third hunger.” Genesis reveals three
aspects of marriage:
Companionship
(Genesis 2:18: “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper
suitable for him.”)Children
(Genesis 1:28: “Be fruitful and multiply…”)Contribution
(Genesis 1:28: “Fill the earth and subdue it, and rule…)
In one sense, we could call this
third aspect of Genesis, “joint fulfilling service,” the Old Testament
equivalent of Matthew 6:33: “Seek first the Kingdom of God…”
If our mission from Christ is
to “seek first the Kingdom of God” how can a successful God-honoring marriage
not be marked by mission? We’re not
told to seek first an intimate marriage, a happy life, obedient children,
or anything else. Jesus tells us to seek first one thing, and one thing only:
His Kingdom and His righteousness (the two words define and build on each
other, creating one common pursuit).
The Millers understand, as I have
come to understand, that life without this aim, and marriage without this
purpose, is going to lose a lot of luster. “We hunger for this today:
cooperating together, meshing, working like a mountain climbing team, ascending
the peak of our dream, and then holding each other at the end of the day. God has planted this hunger deep within
every married couple. It’s more than
a hunger for companionship. It’s more
than a hunger to create new life. It’s
a third hunger, a hunger to do something significant together. According to God’s Word, we were joined to
make a difference. We were married for a
mission.”
Being
“married for a mission” can revitalize a lot of marriages in which the partners
think they suffer from a lack of compatibility; my suspicion is that many of
these couples actually suffer from a lack of purpose. Jesus’ words given to individuals is perhaps even truer in
marriage. When we give away our life, we find it. When we focus outside our
marriage, we end up strengthening our marriage.
The
before-you-have-kids years and the empty-nest years provide particularly
wonderful opportunities to “recalibrate” and rebuild your marriage on the back
of shared mission. Whether you seek to become the sports/coaching couple, the
Bible study leading couple, the local school mentors couple, or the hiking club
couple, using extra time for a divine purpose refuels marriage, passion,
appreciation, and fulfillment. It can revolutionize your relationship. You know
you can’t “re-create” the initial infatuation you felt years ago, but you can create the even more powerful bond
of purpose and spiritual mission.
A
woman once told me, “Over ten years of marriage, I have found that when my
husband and I focus on our own needs, and whether they’re being met, our
marriage begins to self-destruct. But
when we are ministering together, we experience, to the greatest extent we’ve
known, that ‘the two shall become one.’”
Look outside your marriage and build
your relationship with renewed joint purpose.
Date Night Questions to Make This
Post Come Alive in Your Own Marriage:
Do we have any
shared passions that God could use to reach others?Do either one of
us already have a leading ministry that the other one can join? How would we
make that happen?How can
ministering for God together help us be more effective at what we’re already
doing alone? On our sixtieth
wedding anniversary, what do we want to be able to look back at and know we
accomplished something for God together? What steps can we begin taking
today to make that happen?
This article was adapted from Gary’s book: A Lifelong Love: How to Have Lasting Intimacy, Purpose and Friendship in Your Marriage.
The post Married for a Mission: The Surprising Path to a Renewed Marriage appeared first on Gary Thomas.
