For Better Or For Worse

Sometimes we forget that our vows before God were “for better or for worse.” We so quickly want to just cave when the going gets tough. And yet what we need to do is to dig in. Not dig in with stubbornness, anger, or exasperation, but to dig in deeper to the Lord - to His truth; to find humility and that God-love that does not seek it's own. We were never promised a life free of pain and suffering. We were called to share in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering, but with great hope in His redeeming power. We need to dig deep into the heart of God and seek not only His promises, but His will for what our life, our hearts, our attitudes should be in Him.

It is so easy to keep that list of wrongs growing ever longer; to rehearse it daily in our minds; to use it as a merciless weapon just because we can. And yet we are called to take on the image of Christ, of our God who keeps no record of wrongs, who demonstrated His love for us in this: that while we were yet sinners, died for us. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross with all its shame. And His joy? It was that we would one day be reconciled to the Father, and be enabled to have relationship with Him. Do we ask the Lord to give us a vision for our spouse that can be the joy set before us? Do we ask the Spirit to fill us with the ability to be patient…long suffering…to suffer long for the sake of what He can surely do to heal their wounds, to smooth their rough edges, to redeem all things in their lives to Him?  Will we suffer long…claiming the hope that nothing is impossible with God, that He who began a good work IN US BOTH will be faithful to complete it? The only variable to this equation is: Will we be faithful to remain while He does this work?

I have come to know that whenever relational pain has ripped me apart, God always met me there and filled the grief and despair with His holy presence, with such deep love, and with strength far and above my puny faith. When I was suffocating in fear, He brought me out into a spacious place and gave me His breath. He is a God of immeasurable mercy and grace. So often as He has wooed me and healed me by this very grace, He has persistently whispered, “And what of you daughter? Why are you so unwilling to show this grace to your husband? You want it all for yourself, but you don’t want to see your un-lovingness and your un-loveliness.” “But, Lord, “He did…he said…” If you really gaze upon Jesus and His Father, that perfect picture of oneness, neither stands as the accuser. There is only one accuser and his name is Satan. Jesus Christ did not bear the punishment for our sin so that we could be conformed to the image of Satan, our enemy, the accuser. Jesus is our eternal advocate. He lives forever to intercede for us. His love truly did cover over the multitude of our sins, of our spouse’s sin, our children’s sin…the whole broken world of sin.  

His life in us can give us the ability to do the same. Instead of doing battle with our spouses, we can do battle for them. That battle will be a willingness to look at our own lives and shortcomings, places of need, of hurt, of hardness and to let the Lord come in to do some digging, and pruning, and sowing of good seed. And that battle will also be fighting for the sake of our spouses and their areas of weakness, blindness, wounding. Life is hard. Don’t we all just treasure someone who will fight for us? Fight alongside us? Someone who will persevere and not give up on us? They may not even know yet that we are fighting for them because the chasm has grown so wide that oneness seems only a fairy tale. But fight we must. Fighting in prayer…sometimes radical, pleading prayer, and sometimes just quiet persistent prayer. Fixing our eyes on Jesus continually, so that they will not be on that list of wrongs that the enemy wants us to daily remember, and persistently battling to take captive thoughts of bitterness, selfishness, and despair.

We want happily ever after instead of for better of for worse, but the reality is that anything of strength and beauty in this broken world of ours gains it’s stature through trial, buffeting, and pressure. A strong tree has grown deep roots to be able to stand against the storm by withstanding years of wind and heat, perhaps even parching drought. And an athlete’s strength and ability has come from hours and days and seasons of hard training, sore muscles, even injury at times. This means discipline and self denial and that is hard, but denying self is what we are called to.

And remember that there is so much more at stake than our own personal happily ever after. We are to be witnesses to the world of a mighty and holy God that, according to our verbal testimony, breathed the universe into existence by His very word, and yet we live our daily lives denying His very character and strength when we so easily give up on the people in our lives and the covenants we’ve made. We need to realize that that cry of “Lord, I can’t do this!” is not the sign that we now just walk away. It is the cry of surrender and the realization that we can’t do it in our own strength. We were never meant to. God is so big. We need instead to plead that He be big in our eyes, in our lives, in the lives of those around us. And we need to be willing, by the gifting of the Holy Spirit, to suffer long, to be patient. To be still and know that He is God.

All I can say after decades of learning to surrender, of fighting for God to win and to reign and to truly be my Lord, is that I could never have imagined knowing Him so intimately.  And this has not been in spite of, but because of the many journeys of pain, of suffering long in faith, in obedience, learning to tuck in ever closer to Him. And I never even dared to hope that He could bring healing to my heart, to my husband’s heart, and especially to our marriage. At the end of the day I even had to surrender “happily ever after.” All I wanted was Him; to know Him in sweet unbroken fellowship, and that meant obedience in everything, no matter what. And as a balm of promise, He gave joy in the deepest places of my soul even while I persevered through pain. I am so thankful. And I know without a doubt that He is more than able to keep His promises and that He is ever worthy of trust. He is waiting to pour forth power, strength, mercy, grace, wisdom and love upon the lives and relationships of His children.

A life verse that God gave me well before I knew just how much I would need it is Proverbs 3:5,6… ”Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will keep your path straight.” I come back to this over and over again…especially the “lean not on your own understanding” part. God is the only one who really knows the depth of our hearts and our situations. Lean on Him for your marriage, seek His promises for yourself and for your spouse. There is a world out there watching to see if God is who we claim He is. If we won’t trust Him ourselves, wait on Him, live a life of long-suffering...ever hopeful, and allow Him to do what only He can do, they will never see from us any reason to put their trust in Him. It is He who is to be glorified by our lives. By His power we can persevere, because - for better of for worse - He will never leave us nor forsake us.  

Give us faith to believe your promises, Lord. Teach us to walk in Your commands, realizing that obedience…even in baby steps…is the only way to see our faith grow and give You room to work Your daily miracles of redemption in all our hearts and marriages. You are more than able. Amen.


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For some additional thoughts on marriage: Perfect Love