How would you define the purposes of marriage? Love and companionship? Stability? Building a family? Social expectations? There are a lot of reasons people marry and, more often than not, we haven’t thought about them very much when we make the big decision.
Yet, if we study God’s purposes for marriage, we might better understand our experiences in marriage. We might thrive and grow.
I suspect that the God who created earth’s complex ecosystems designed marriage for many reasons including all of those mentioned above. Yet there is one of His reasons for marriage that we are most likely to neglect: growth. Marriage is supposed to change us and make us better people—not merely because it keeps us off the streets but because it challenges us to get outside ourselves and fully enter another person’s life. This is stretching stuff!
What Elder Maxwell said about life applies with special force to marriage. “We need to break free of our old selves—the provincial, constraining, and complaining selves—and become susceptible to the shaping of the Lord” (Willing to Submit, April 1995).
Provincial. Constraining. Complaining. We tend to see everything from our narrow, self-focused perspective. We often chafe at the demands of marriage. And we complain—to ourselves or others—about those demands. Jenkin Lloyd Jones made a valid observation.
There seems to be a superstition among many thousands of our young who [hold hands and live in the haze of romance] that marriage is a cottage surrounded by perpetual hollyhocks, to which a perpetually young and handsome husband comes home to a perpetually young and ravishing wife. When the hollyhocks wither and boredom and bills appear, the divorce courts are jammed. Anyone who imagines that [constant] bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he’s been robbed.
I love Jones’ insight. Yet there is something missing from Jones’ observation. We need more than an acceptance that there will be ups and downs in any marriage in order to thrive in the relationship. We need to understand God’s refining purposes. We need to understand that marriage more than almost anything else challenges us to get outside our egocentrisms—our assumptions that our way of seeing the world and our way of doing things makes perfect sense. God is stretching our narrow, self-serving fallenness toward gracious, inclusive godliness.
Sometimes the process is painful. “But the old self goes neither gladly nor quickly. Even so, this subjection to God is really emancipation” (Maxwell, Willing to Submit, April 1985).
It turns out that the key to a loving marriage is to fully live the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe we should not be surprised that the principles God has prescribed are essential not only for eternal life but for married life as well.
The very practical problem in life and marriage is that we have not been very perceptive about how to apply the core principles in either domain.
For example, the first principle of life and marriage is commitment. We get baptized to show our commitment to God in the journey of discipleship. We are sealed in the temple to solemnize our marriages. But commitment is not completed by an ordinance. After baptism must come a long, winding—and often joyous—path of discipleship. After marriage must come a long, winding—and often joyous—path of devotion and self-sacrifice.
Another core principle of the gospel and marriage is love. Often, we reduce love to a willingness to tolerate our neighbors and show up for an occasional service project. But the love Jesus requires is much more than tepid tolerance. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). We are to love our spouses as Jesus loved the church??! Totally. Sacrificially. Eternally. That is more than a casual demand. Jesus is asking for our whole souls.
There are other principles that apply to having a strong marriage. Compassion. Solving problems in His way. Each is far more expansive than our simple formulas suggest.
To paraphrase a familiar passage from the Lectures on Faith: Any institution that does not require the sacrifice of all things cannot possibly transform us into the heavenly beings God intends us to become. He is not looking for minor adjustments but for mighty changes. He is not looking to make us good people but to bring us to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).
The good news for those who understand God’s refining purposes for marriage is that great blessings will result. We lean into His plan for growing our soul. We put aside our self-centered expectation that marriage continually fulfill our own desires on our own terms. We stretch ourselves to act towards our spouse with commitment, love and compassion.
We are then blessed with a deeper companionship, mutual comfort and support, fewer frustrations and conflicts, more gratitude for our partner, more times of shared joy. Our marriages will thrive. We will have the foundation to successfully weather difficulties and trials together. And we will become more like Christ. We will prepare to joyfully continue our covenant relationship with each other throughout eternity.
It should not surprise us that the demands of married partnership are much like those for faithful discipleship. In both cases, He is not asking for casual assent but whole-souled, life-changing investment.
You and your married family members are invited to: Creating a Joyful Companionship: A Marriage Retreat with Dr. Wally Goddard, PhD Family & Human Development.
Join Dr. Wally for a retreat to renew your companionship, overcome marital conflict, create loving connection, and build a joyful eternal marriage. The retreat will be beneficial for couples who have a strong marriage and hope to elevate their relationship even further, as well as couples who have a desire to reset their relationship.
At this retreat, you will experience:
- A transformational process for creating loving connection
- Research-based tools in harmony with God’s truths that will help you approach your marriage with deeper commitment, love and compassion. You will also learn tools to enable you to more effectively resolve conflict.
- A small group setting limited to 12 couples that allows for discussion
- A comfortable environment: Group sharing will not be required and there won’t be any role playing,
Cost per couple (with lunch provided):
- $149 (early bird pricing through August)
- $199 (regular pricing until September 15)
- $249 (late registration, if seats still available)
- Partial and full scholarships available.
Dates are September 28, 2024, or February 15, 2025
- For September 28, register at: https://buytickets.at/drwally/1330774
- For February 15, register at: https://buytickets.at/drwally/1347374
For questions, email: thewaypeoplework@gmail.com or call: 501-454-2724
Thanks to Barbara Keil for her helpful additions to this article.
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