I'll freely admit, I've always been a
hopeless romantic, just ask the girls I wrote poems and letters to oh
so long ago. The first time I read the Marriage Isn't For You post, I
read through it with a smile on my face, but then before I hit the
“share” button, I thought about it some and read it again. After
reading through it again something didn't sit just right with me, but
I didn't realize what it was until I had read through a bunch of the
comments (I don't recommend reading through the comments of anything
that has gone viral, it can make you start questioning the sanity and
decency of humanity).
All one comment said was, “Marriage
is for God,” yeah, this is true, but without expounding, no one
knows what the crap you're talking about. Another comment was fairly
long but they wrapped it by saying, “God is happiest when we are
happiest.” And that caused me to realize what didn't feel right
about the post, my “hang-up” word was “happy.”
I went to the Bible to try and learn
God's purpose for marriage and, if you simply read Paul's reasons,
it's actually a little depressing for a hopeless romantic. Basically,
Paul encourages people to stay single, but if they can't control
their “passions,” they should marry as a way of having a
righteous way of dealing with sexual urges. Well, that's not very
romantic and if that's the only reason someone is marrying me, then I
think I'll pass. So I went back further, to the verses where God
talks about creating Eve. God said “it is not good that the man
should be alone” so he paraded every creature in front of Adam that
he might name them; even after that, God didn't think their was
anything suitable to be a companion for man, to be his “helper”
(which the word “helper” here is used elsewhere as a term
referring to God as our helper, it is a term of honor). A cat or dog
wouldn't do away with man's being alone; even though God walked in
the garden with Adam, that didn't take care of Adam being “alone.”
So God created Eve to be his companion and to chase away his
loneliness.
I think God creates some people with a
longing for companionship (an aspect of this being physical intimacy)
which cannot be fully filled, while in this flesh, by God or anything
else. Maybe it is a weakness, maybe it is better to stay single, if
you can, so you can more fully devote yourself to God; but God has
his writers again and again compare the relationship between Christ
and those he has saved to the marriage relationship. In other words,
God thinks marriage is something beautiful that can exemplify aspects
of Christ's love as no other thing can.
Why did I get hung-up on the word
“happy?” Because I don't think it dives deep enough. First I'll
say, maybe the author of the post did intend a deeper meaning, but
the commenter I spoke of did not. I'm not sure where and when this
idea that what God wants most for us is for us to be happy slipped
in, but it's wrong. Christ promised us peace and joy, but he also
promised trials and persecutions to those that would follow him.
This next thought was influenced by
C.S. Lewis and one of my Bible professors in college, but I think it
is also implied in the Bible, “Count it all joy, my brothers and
sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the
testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness
have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete...”
James 1:4. The idea is that this world is a schoolroom in which our
souls are shaped into beings better suited to heaven, better suited
to see God and praise him. C.S. Lewis and many others think suffering
is one of God's greatest tools in this shaping (that's not to say he
is always the cause of the suffering, only that he uses it).
In one of those poems I wrote when I
was young, I spoke about wanting to shield the girl from all pain but
of also wanting her to grow, so instead of promising to shield her
(which is an impossible promise anyway), I promised to be with her
through her pain, to walk beside her.
So why do I think we should marry? To
fulfill a longing only another human can fill, and to fill that
longing in them. To paint a picture to the world of what Christ's
love for his church is. An addition to this painting can be made
through having children and your love relationship with them, but if
you can't/don't have kids, just focus on making your painting the
most beautiful it can be.
Through all of our experiences I think
we have the potential to learn aspects of God we could otherwise not
learn, that we will one day share with one another once at our
heavenly home. If you stay single and Christ is your sole lover, you
will learn aspects a married person will not learn. If you marry,
through that relationship, you will learn aspects of God's love you
would learn no other way. Through having children, you would learn
other things. And on and on, in all parts of our life.
So, I'm sorry, dear, wherever and
whomever you are, but my primary goal is not to make you happy. A
teacher once shared with me that when Paul said,”Husbands, love
your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her...” what he was saying is that I should live and love towards
you in such a way that will make you whole and perfect, so that your
soul is better suited to heaven, so that by the time I'm done loving
you on this earth, you will be an even more beautiful bride for
Christ. My primary goal is to walk beside you, whatever emotions you
are feeling, no matter how dark the trial is. I cannot and will not
shield you from all pain, but I will experience it with you, try to
see the light in the darkness with you, even if it takes years and
years and even if we still have to search for it in heaven. I hope we
laugh a lot with each other, cause joy to spill from one another's
hearts and faces. I will try to love you in such way that makes you
more beautiful than you are, more ready for heaven. I hope you will
do the same for me.
All that to say, marriage is a tiny bit
for me, a little bit for being a light to the world, mostly for you, and
all for God.
