Holiness not Happiness

My church is currently going through a 4-week teaching series on marriage called Fixer Upper. I love the premise of the series — that every marriage is a “fixer upper.” No marriage is perfect. No couple is perfect. No husband is perfect. No wife is perfect. We are all works in progress. You don’t even have to be married to know THAT truth!

On Sunday our pastor quoted one of my favorite authors. In his incredible book Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas proposes this thought: “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?” He goes on to explain that marriage is one of God’s greatest tools to help us become more like Jesus. He postulates that marriage is a spiritual discipline just as much as reading the Bible, praying, giving, fasting, serving others, etc. (He wrote a companion volume called Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes Your Soul. You should check that out, too.)

Think about marriage for a moment. Where else do we get a 24–7–365 opportunity to display love, grace and compassion? Where else do have the constant opportunity to serve, to forgive and to pursue peace?

I remember reading Sacred Marriage years ago and it literally revolutionized my marriage & parenting. I’m not saying I’m perfect (see my opening paragraph), but I am saying that it gave me a whole new lens through which I viewed my relationship with my wife & kids. Suddenly, all of those things that drove me crazy about THEM became opportunities for ME to become more like Jesus. So much of conflict in marriage is because we look at the faults & foibles of our spouse rather than looking in the mirror and being honest about our own short-comings.

When I began to see my wife & kids as opportunities for me to become more like Jesus…

Frustration turned into patience. Anger turned into compassion. Expectations turned into opportunities to serve. Misunderstandings turned into appreciation of differences.

My wife & I still have a long way to go. No marriage is perfect. No couple is perfect. No husband is perfect. No wife is perfect. We are all works in progress.

The good news is…I am giving my wife LOTS of opportunities to become more like Jesus!