Family and Marriage
I am acutely aware of the fact that there are many, many homes where divorce and singleness is a reality. I’ve walked with some of my closest friends through this sad and difficult process in the past few years. I’ve certainly had my own marriage challenges that have at times shook me to my core as I’ve wrestled with my own sinfulness, lack of wisdom, and the realities and challenges of leadership. Even the very definition of marriage itself has come under attack. Mainstream media, entertainment and music usually glorify a life of relationships removed from the marriage commitment, while mocking humor is often reserved in sitcoms for the family life. Sin and brokenness impact real families and people, those left to pick up the pieces need our love and support, and those who were primarily responsible for the brokenness need our prayers and God’s grace.
Such realities should never drive us away from considering God’s original plan and purpose for marriage. Rather, they highlight why delving deep into God’s plan and purpose are so important. It has been noted that we become what we look at the most. If there was ever a time that we need the eyes of our hearts filled with God’s vision for what marriage can and should be when we step into His definitions, roles and responsibilities, that time is now. To be certain, that doesn’t downplay a person who is single or divorced. God orchestrates and uses every part of our lives for His glory, our own good, and as a testimony to a watching world. The valleys as well as the mountain tops. Wherever God has you, you are not “less than”. As a child of God, you are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ and are fulfilling a unique and important part of His Kingdom purpose.
God made us to live in relationship and community, and the most basic form of that God-stamped reality is marriage. After mankind fell, the Gospel became imperative to the restoration of ourselves to God and to each other. Not surprisingly, this shows up first and foremost in the most basic expression of human “togetherness” – marriage.
I don’t think it could be any more appropriate than to kick off this part of the blog with a series of considerations on how the Gospel informs our view of marriage and empowers us to live with and for another person. In such a way that we are reminded of the Savior. That One Who, though equal with the Father, humbled Himself and became obedient unto death that He might raise us to everlasting glory. That He might renew and restore in a more permanently brilliant fashion His image in us.
That, brothers and sisters, is the basis of a great friendship. That is the basis of a great marriage.
