By David Hegg
Over the years, I have watched in anguish from a front-row seat as couples, good people all, have ended their marriages in divorce. They started fine. Most brought children into this world and raised them well. They had successful careers, enjoyed life’s pleasures, were faithful church folks, and collected great friends. But in the end, what they lacked was friendship in their marriage. They built their relationships on attraction and excitement, and when life hit, little by little, they realized they hated more about each other than they liked. They had failed to move past love and find deep, soul-renewing friendship in their union.
Unfortunately, this is an all-too-common occurrence in our time. The pervasive societal sentiment that sexuality is the primary texture of happy living has eclipsed the reality that shared commitment to lasting values is the only sure foundation for marriage.
There is an old saying among church leaders: “What you win them by is what you win them to.” It means the reason people come to your church is also the reason they stay. If they are attracted to hype, glitz and flattery, you’ll have to keep it up to keep them coming. On the other hand, if they come desperate and hungry to meet a holy God through the teaching of the Bible and the caring fellowship of God’s family, then that will have to be your ongoing strategy.
The same principle is true for marriage. What attracts us to someone has to be honest and lasting, or we will no longer be interested in walking the path of life with them. Those who have been married for decades understand it is no longer merely physical attraction or the excitement of having your own person that makes their relationship satisfying. They will tell you it is their shared values that have brought them past infatuation, through the valley of testing, and finally into the land of deep trust, respect, profoundly satisfying love and radical friendship. They will tell you they have indeed become one. As one seasoned husband explained, “I’m not sure where I end and she begins. We seem to think, feel, and live as one person. It’s amazing, and it’s great.”
But it certainly doesn’t come easily. By that, I don’t mean marriage is painful or an inevitably draining series of male/female battles. I’m simply saying that achieving (not finding!) happiness is hard work. But it is satisfying, enjoyable, and productive hard work. It is labor for the purpose of great personal reward. It is diligence focused on nourishing and nurturing another person at the expense of yourself, even as you realize that sacrifice is the only option available if you’re to achieve the euphoria God intended for marriage.
This emphasis on hard work and sacrifice motivates and inspires couples to remain committed to their marriage, even in the face of challenges.
The current decay of marriage in our society stems from two basic things. First, marriage has become a casual relationship to be tried if you want and discarded if it doesn’t work out. Its disposable nature means you don’t have to prepare for it or work hard at it. Second, those who want their marriages to work often are blind to the demands it makes on husband and wife.
Good marriages are made of good people. Our marriages erode rapidly when we stop being good, even for “good” reasons. But to be good to another person means a growing sense of humility understood not as thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself – your desires – less. It will demand hard work to mature in areas of personal weakness while learning to sacrifice for our spouse’s well-being.
But beyond everything else, a good marriage demands that a man and a woman be fundamentally committed to the bedrock core values that sustain life and give it meaning. Like everything else in life, a satisfying marriage demands a mutually held ethical foundation and a commitment to pursue the virtues that flow from it.
This commitment must be the fuel that drives them away from selfishness and into sacrificial love for one another. Only in this way will the lasting bonds of friendship be forged. Happiness is there for the finding, but only for those who are willing to give their lives to do so.
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
