About a month ago I wrote part 1 of this entry, throwing out all of the things that marriage is not. And when I got to the end of the blog, I wasn’t left with much of what marriage is. Since then I also realize that marriage isn’t finding contentment in the other person because if you can’t find contentment in your own life as a single person, there is no way marriage is going to make you happy, and there is no way your spouse is always going to make you happy.The conclusion I came to this morning is that, ALL of the reasons I listed as to why many people get married all relate back to selfishness—it all relates back to what your spouse can offer YOU rather than what YOU can offer your spouse. This is why marriage is destroyed for many people—because going into it they were solely thinking about their OWN needs rather than the needs of the other person.
You cannot completely understand the concept of marriage until you take yourself out of it—until you remove your needs and desires out of it. When you take those things away, that is a marriage. So when divorcees immediately blame their spouse for not meeting their needs and desires—their argument is unjust because the REAL blame should be placed on themselves. Marriage is truly making the decision to share in helping someone else grow in THEIR lives and loving THEM unconditionally, with the HOPE rather than the expectation of ever receiving anything in return, each day and everyday for the rest your life. WOW. I think if most people really understood this concept, hardly anyone would glorify marriage as they do because this concept heaps all the responsibility of sustaining a marriage on each individual—not solely based on how the other person can satisfy you.
Marriage, as we know it, is glorified to be this wonderful union where YOU get all of your needs met, and if YOUR needs aren’t met then it is grounds for divorce. But as usual, God calls us to be the opposite of what the world considers good, decent, and justifiable. This is why marriage truly is a supernatural relationship, even if you do not believe in God, because it truly transcends all selfishness, all desires, all needs—it transcends it all because you are called to serve this other person. Even when you say the vows like “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health” etc. you are committing yourself to life long devotion to that person no matter what happens and no matter if you never receive anything else in return. That type of devotion is intensely unselfish and unconditional—this is why marriage is one of the truest forms of the agape love in which Jesus commands to love everyone, even our enemies.
When we enter into marriage we truly have to enter into it without ourselves. The only things we should ever enter a marriage with are agape love and God, because at the end of the day only God can give us the enduring and steadfast strength to truly keep our commitment to our spouse.
This is why the concept of marriage cannot be understood in a selfish mind because our entire society breeds us to be selfish in every aspect of our lives and most things that we do in our lives are for self gratification and to gratify our flesh. With this mentality, most people enter into marriage and expect the self gratification that they have received their whole lives. And when that gratification is not received, then they retract their commitment. WOW.
The call to love is even greater than I once thought.
And the call to marriage is even greater.
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1 comments:
I like.
I agree.
One of the guys I work with tells me that marriage shows men how they are legends in their own minds and that until we shed our selfishness and realize how we need to change, we can't ever expect marriage to automatically lead to happiness.
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