Failure Is Good News
“That spouse drives us stark raving mad; how did we ever love them? It’s like living in a house with mold in the walls, and we don’t know why we are sick.”
In celebration of the upcoming release of The Marriage Renovation, and in appreciation of you who waited patiently for me to finish, this week I feature excerpts from the book.
IN CHRIST ALONE
We all need someone bigger and stronger to help us, a savior to take charge of this life. It’s written into our DNA.
God created marriage to reflect the beauty of our relationship with Him. When our eyes are on Jesus, it does. We trust Him, relax in Him and love Him with abandon—and then experience that same sweet intimacy with the spouse we can hold through the night. Marriage as it reflects our relationship with God provides our safe place for Him to grow us and sanctify us and conform us to the image of Christ. That requires constant focus on Jesus. God uses marriage to grow our dependence on Him, to teach us how to love sacrificially, to give us a place from which we can’t easily escape, so we must listen to Him.
In practice, however, our eyes keep falling from Jesus onto our marriage. Naturally, we focus on this wonderful gift from God, and all the perks. But marriage inevitably disappoints because it cannot provide all that God Himself wants to provide… and then there’s all that refining to be done! At its worst, marriage spirals into a living hell—annoying, oppressive and interminable. That spouse drives us stark raving mad; how did we ever love them? It’s like living in a house with mold in the walls, and we don’t know why we are sick. We consider divorce, but where would we go, what about the kids, would people reject us? If we could kill our spouse and get away with it, we just might. (If you think I overstate the case, watch the evening news.)
You may still be trying to be each other’s savior, or you may be wondering what you’re doing married to this person. But at some point, you will feel like a failure in marriage. That failure is by design, because God does not want you to be your own or your spouse’s Savior.
That failure is better news than you can imagine!
Filed under: Abiding In Christ, Love, Marriage
