Aging-and-Revelation

Can the Bible Help Your Marriage?

The Bible begins its teaching on marriage with the first marriage of Adam and Eve:
^“21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. ²²Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.
²³The man said,
‘This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called woman,
    for she was taken out of man.’
²⁴That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:21-24)

^“7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mark 10:7-9)

So, the Bible explicitly says that marriage is meant to be permanent.

But nothing is permanent, except in the presence of God.

So, live in the presence of the Shepherd, who oversees your marriage. Living in His presence means not just “hearing” but also “living out” His Word.

“As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like.” (Luke 6:47)

Fighting Fear

Getting married is going into unchartered waters, and it can be unsettling, causing fear of the unknown and the unpredictable.

“Do not fear. . . . When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.” (Isaiah 43: 1-2)

Even Jesus said to His disciples caught in a violent storm: “Why are you so afraid?” before He commanded the waters to be still. (Matthew 8: 23-27)

So, if you genuinely believe that the two of you truly love each other, then go ahead and get married. There’s nothing to fear, except the fear of getting married.

Burying Bitterness

Marital life is sometimes full of difficulties and disappointments that become bitterness. The best course of action is to pause, reflect, and then bury them, while praying to God to replace your bitterness with a sweet, joyful spirit to enable you to make the right decision about the next step to take. Making decisions in the heat of distress is rarely a good idea, and it often breeds only more hardship.

Breaking the Cycles

Life is full of many cycles-such as the vicious cycles of addiction and rehabilitation, including alcohol, drugs, gambling, and sex. But God’s love can break the cycles of your past, giving you a new future with faith, hope and strength to break even future cycles to come.

Calling for Justice and Mercy

Living in the presence of God means you’re called to pursue both justice and mercy. But justice isn’t pursuing revenge, and mercy isn’t showing a lack of accountability. Instead, justice-and-mercy is moving forward with love that not only hates what is evil, but also longs for the transformation of self, as well as the one you love, that is, your marriage partner.

Listening and Practicing

Living in the presence of God means you’ve the opportunity to listen to Him. However, that’s not enough: you’ve to put His Words “into practice.” Not putting “into practice” is like building a house “on sand” instead of “on rock.”

^“But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7:26-27)

So, if you build your marriage on any foundation other than the humble obedience to God’s Words, you’re only inviting troubles to your marriage.

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” (John 15:4)

Living in the presence of God is spiritual nourishment to help the spiritual renewal and fruitfulness in your marriage.

Manifesting Patience

You may be struggling with patience, not just with your marriage partner, but also with the divine help from God. You’re not alone. Even the ancient prophet Habakkuk complained:

“How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’
   but you do not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2)

But some of God’s help and blessings to your marriage may be long to come. So, just have faith, and manifest your patience with trust and obedience, and His help will come one day.

Accepting Accountability

You’re living in a world in which injustice and vengeance are rampant. Living in the midst of this storm of unfairness may cause you unhappiness and even your own lack of faith in God.

But seeing the lack of accountability in others should, on the contrary, enhance your own accountability not only in your marriage but also in your everyday living. God is forever just and will bring judgment and justice to all-at His own timeline.

An illustration

In 1984, Archbishop Valerian Trifa was deported from the United States after being accused of being a Nazi supporter, who not only had incited attacks on Jews, but also was responsible for executing many Jews in World War II.

After World War II, the former Nazi supporter came to the United States as a refugee immigrant. He assumed the name of Valerian Trifa, and he was ordained as a priest of the Rumanian church soon after his arrival in the United States. He rose quickly to the rank of bishop and then archbishop, who lived in comfort in a 25-room farmhouse on a 200-acre estate maintained by his church.

Then, a dentist, who was a Nazi survivor, recognized the Archbishop as the Nazi supporter. The case against the Archbishop was reported in the media, and then pursued for more than a decade long by some survivors of the Nazi, Jewish organizations, journalists, as well as by the Justice Department of the United States. Their joint efforts helped focus public attention on those Nazi war criminals who were living in the United States.

At first, the Archbishop vehemently denied his former identity, despite some handwriting experts had confirmed that his handwriting was identical with that in some of the execution orders he had carried out while he was a Nazi supporter. As luck would have it, with the advancement of forensic science, some experts could incredibly still retrieve some DNA from those execution orders with the Archbishop’s own saliva on them. That was his undoing, and his final judgment.

In 1982, the Archbishop was ultimately ordered to leave the United States. But he had spent two years trying to find a country that would give him refuge. In 1984, Portugal admitted him, and he finally settled in Estoril, where he died at the age of 72 of a heart attack.

So, believe that God is merciful, but also a just God, who’ll judge injustice and any wrongdoing according to His own timeframe.

So, living in the presence of God is showing your accountability to every aspect of your married life.

Letting God

Changing God’s mind for what He has already destined for you is disobedience. Obedience to God is graciously accepting and embracing any adversity and calamity in life so that you may learn lessons from them, thereby enhancing your spiritual wisdom to continue your pathway of trust and obedience.

“Teach us to number our days,
    that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
(Psalm 90:12)

What is trusting in God? Trusting in God means believing in the veracity of His Words.

“so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
    It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
    and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11)

Letting God is letting go of your control of your destiny. God is in absolute control of everything in this world, including your marriage.

“He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth.’” (Psalm 46:10)

Throughout ages, miracles have happened around the world-a testament to the indisputable fact that God is always in control of anything and everything, despite humans’ resistance to letting go of their own futile efforts and endeavors to control their own destinies.

Control is basic human instinct. Humans are inherently controlling. But you must let go of your control in your marriage. You can’t control your marriage partner-how he or she thinks. You can’t control your children-how they grow up, and what they’d become. You can’t control your success and failure in your life endeavors.

So, do your best, and let God do the rest. Contrary to popular belief, control isn’t power, but obedience to God is.

The parable and the real world

In the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), the younger son asked his father for his fair share of his estate. The father gave him his fair share. With his fortune, the younger son traveled to a distant country, where he led a life of sin, and squandered all his fortune. His financial failure was followed by a natural disaster in the form of a famine. He learned the hard way that covetousness wouldn’t make him happy. Ultimately, he became penitent and returned to his father who welcomed him with open arms.

The father was like God, letting a sinner go his own way without stopping him, but would welcome him back if he becomes obedient and penitent, letting go of his sins and acknowledging his own accountability.

The reality

In the real world, you may think that you can and should control every aspect of your marriage. The reality is that only in the presence of God, you and your marriage partner may be transformed from the inside out with accountability.

So, just do your best, and let God do the rest. Let go of your control to let God take over the control of everything in your marriage. Live in the presence of the Shepherd with humility, obedience, and also accountability.

To find out more about the role of your accountability to God in your marriage, read the book Getting Married to Make You Happy? Click here to get your copy.