‘Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? ‘ 2 Corinthians 6:14(NLT)
‘For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.’ Ephesians 5:23-33(NLT)
‘Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. “For I hate divorce!” says the Lord , the God of Israel. “To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, ” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “So guard your heart; do not be unfaithful to your wife.”’ Malachi 2:15-16(NLT)
Hopefully you are beginning to see that marriage has a much higher calling and a deeper purpose than to make you happy. It is actually God’s design to often make you uncomfortable in marriage which, in turn, leads you to trust and rely on Him even more. Realize that if God ever made two people to “complete each other” perfectly… then we would never need God. We would only need our spouse, and they would quickly become our god.
Understanding that God gave us marriage and our spouse, not to complete us, but to help us grow is a huge shift. So do yourself a favor and throw out the old Jerry Maguire movie if you still have it lying around. Think of marriage like this, “Marriage is” as John & Stasi Eldredge state in their marriage book LOVE & WAR, “a divine conspiracy.”
You most likely entered marriage with selfish motives. Almost all of us do. Let me prove it. Over the years I have had numerous couples answer this simple question: “Tell me why you got married.” Standard responses: “He/She makes me laugh, I can be myself around them, they make me want to be a better person,” or even “they make me want to be closer to God.”
All of the responses, even the last one, are rooted in selfishness. It is all rooted in how this person makes me feel. Even if your spouse makes you want to be closer to God, it is still about what they are doing for you. You may be thinking, “But those are some good things.” They are, and that is exactly why God uses them in this way. His divine conspiracy is to get you into marriage so He can then start working in you and out of you what He wants.
This does not mean God cannot accomplish things in you outside of marriage, but let’s be honest, no other relationship is as intimate, as exposing, as constant, or as risky as marriage is.
Take a few moments and ask God: “Why did I get married? What were my expectations of marriage? Have I been looking for my spouse to complete me?”
from True North: LIVE Free In Marriage