You asked what one feature to look for in a future husband. I have done premarital counseling sessions for over 40 couples, and in those hundreds of hours of counseling, you may be surprised by my conclusion.
But before I give you what you should look for, I need to state the obvious: if his record as a Christian and church-goer is doubtful, don’t walk away, run. So, if you get the first impression this fella says all the right things but is half-hearted about doing the right things, he’s no friend and certainly no future husband. A good father can catch these subtleties early.
The obvious aside, what I have found most compelling in future husbands is their ability to take themselves lightly. G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.” Levity is what you are looking for in a future groom. Men who are uptight about everything, who cannot take a joke, critique, and act as if being severe is the apex of holiness are, in most cases, bad candidates for a future husband. I know there are exceptions, but so much of marriage involves laughing together, encouraging one another, arguing well, making food together, and having mutual respect for each other’s opinions and commentary that taking oneself lightly appears a prerequisite for bliss.
This does not mean that everyone must live with smiles dangling from their faces as if everything is bliss and nothing is lent, rather it means that a good man is going to bear a sense of a romantic mystic. He may be cheery, but he may also have the Mr. Darcy syndrome, which means an awkward outward demeanor filled with a poetic sense of justice inwardly. Elizabeth saw that eventually. She is also filled with faults, so perhaps you should give the man a second chance. But the key is that he is not the kind who wallows in self-pity, whether a Darcy or a Bingley.
For this reason, I have concluded that a man who takes himself lightly is more open to learning and maturing through marriage. So, keep your eyes open for flying angels.
I woke up 19 years ago at around 6 am shaped by a sense of loneliness. It wasn’t a somber and desperate loneliness, but a lucid and intellectual one. I knew that some hours later, I would no longer feel the weight of being in a foreign country alone–distant from blood and familiarity–but that God would put someone more glorious to remove the distance of familial bonds and re-create an entirely new bond through vows and benediction.I brought my guitar close–the thing that was always close–to tune it in preparation for a solo to my new wife that afternoon at our wedding reception. The whole morning was a flurry of feelings, a vast embrace of my history in preparation to merge into a new one.
I remember how much our youth blossomed on that hot Florida day. Our faces shined like a transfigured glory-cloud. It may have been the sweat, but I prefer to remember it as unadulterated joy that made our faces glow. We filled our emotional jars with a cascade of romanticism. We had read the entire Psalter the previous 150 days leading to May 17th, 2003. We had songs and hopes to fill our imagination. We were deeply in love–eager to begin life together enjoying the gifts and gratitudes that accompany holy matrimony.
We entered into marriage wholeheartedly with the commitment of two innocent souls, saturated by Jesus and undeniably hungry to put our worldview into practice. We were young, restless, and pre-formed, preparing to shape our desires and longings with new histories and happiness.
And all of that was enough. We possessed little. But we possessed the right things. So, we walked that afternoon to the church building “reverently,” as the ancient wedding words say. We looked straight into the minister’s eyes and acknowledged the importance of our words. We never once doubted the goodness of God and never once failed to see God’s faithfulness. I had come from a far country and now I was walking up to a new country with an altar and a priest.
19 years later, I look back on the genesis of our life together. I look back to the smiles of youthfulness uncertain about our next step, but confident in God’s good providence. Now, five children later, a few vans later, a few degrees later, a few hundred solos later, a few thousand meals later, a few arguments later, a few hundred acts of selfishness later (mostly mine), and a few million acts of benevolence later from our God, I am content in the wife of my youth. Her zeal for life, her untiring energy, and her conspicuous love of the good makes me a better man, a better husband, and a better practitioner. When Chesterton wrote that “Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline,” it was a statement of value. We have both died many times and we have both been made alive in a hundred ways. Marriage is good. Work on it. Suffer well together. And never lose the reverence which brought you to that sacred event.
“Many waters cannot quench love,neither can floods drown it.If one offered for loveall the wealth of one’s house,it would be utterly scorned.”Happy 18 years of matrimony, amor!
Your question had to do with masculine motivation. In short, you pondered why your spouse does not have godly ambition in life. That is a terrific question and I am certain there are many others who could opine in more sophisticated language and deal more realistically with the motivation factor. Dr. Jordan Peterson is the obvious one from a secular perspective, though his insights are very much grounded in common grace wisdom. I would also throw in Mark Horne’s book, “Solomon Says: Directives for Young Men,” as a resource for your sons.
In many of these cases, there may be health-related issues attached, but I want to deal with my area of interest which is the habit and ritual categories.
In many cases, habits built early on are hard to undo later in life. For instance, fathers who did not read the Bible often produce young men who are indifferent towards Bible reading. The same can be applied to other fields as well. This applies especially to husbands who treat the Lord’s Day with triviality. Attending worship is not on top of his priority list, and therefore the family reads into his lack of enthusiasm and before long they have developed an environment where only if the perfect condition is met, then attendance can take place. The end result is that the perfect condition–especially if you have little ones–are rarely found. These fathers will be judged for their lack of leadership. So, many of these issues are ritualized into the fabric of a young man and later play a role in a married man’s desires.
Whether these particular godly ambitions are what you have in mind, we can return to them another time. But the basic question is the one I intend to address, which is why a man does not have godly ambition and desire.
As in other scenarios, I believe the principles need to be kept few. Brevity is the art of kings. Long-windedness is the art of bureaucrats. Two significant principles for men come to mind, which also allow them to regain motivation and godly ambition in life.
First, every man must choose something to love. He must be committed to certain principles. He must love his God, family, church well enough that it is visible. The lack of loves leads to a lack of desires and pursuits in a man’s life. He will be easily content with mud pies and assume that there is nothing too great to love, or worse, he will assume that he loves just enough to satisfy expectations. But he needs to love well and fervently those things he is accountable to love. A man with no true and substantive love will settle for trivialities and the pursuits of children.
The second principle is a little harder to articulate because it does not sound “nice” for our age. But every man must choose something to hate well. I added “well” because unrestrained hatred is deceptive and demoralizing. God and his people hate all kinds of things in the Bible, but especially unrighteous acts.
A man must be able to carefully articulate his hates, as well as his loves. He must pursue the hatred of something tangible. He can’t simply say he hates Nietzsche and act as if that is sufficient. He must hate the philosophy and the consequences of that thinking in the lives of people and politics.
It is too often that men believe they must only love things, but I argue that godly ambitious men also hate the right things and causes. And he must do both so that his hates don’t trump his loves and vice-versa. When men begin to step back from necessary conflict, it’s because he loves their reputation too much or hates the wrong things.
Godly ambitions are rooted in desires, and desires are rooted in the true man who hated and loved well.
You asked me to add some thoughts about why relatively outwardly peaceful marriages end in divorce. This is a truly complex question that requires a lot of nuances and some healthy counseling. The reality is that every marriage goes through periods of hopelessness. Some go through great travail for years and some survive under one roof with no joy and little flourishing, but as you stated, some do end in divorce.
On average, marriages are usually dissolved/destroyed on the first year or the 21st year. The first year is usually self-explanatory since many couples enter into this sacred vow with no understanding of marriage or its rituals. They are provided no spiritual counsel as to the purpose and priority of the other. They enter into it–contradicting the sacred vows–irreverently and indiscreetly. Perhaps there was an unwanted pregnancy, or social pressures from community, or a decision to confirm what they have been doing–sinfully–for too long.
The good news is that contrary to the statistics thrown around that 50% of Christians get divorced, the number is actually much lower (but that’s for another post). This does not entail a victory lap, but a note of soberness. Why is it still that a large portion of Christian marriages end in divorce? Set aside abuse and other legitimate reasons for divorce, most marriages simply end as a result of “hiddenness.” It’s a repeat of the shameful nakedness in the garden. Habits and ideas are hidden to the point where shame becomes a reason for anger and strife and division in the household. When a sense of guilt enters, we hide from one another. This does not determine the end; in fact, these marriages can be redeemed, but Spirit intervention is crucial and the angelic voices of faithful friends must come into the picture.
In most cases, individuals persist in marriage relationships for the sake of children, and in the meanwhile they craft independent lives, and little by little the soul withers leading to the 21st year number I mentioned at the beginning. The 21st year of marriage is often how long it takes for parents to be empty-nesters providing the opportunity to do what they did not do for so long.
What is prevalent is that these individuals have been dying for a long time and divorce becomes the way out; for some it becomes the solution to find happiness once again, but invariably they find more loneliness and sadness. But if a couple is still in that phase of processing their lives together, and if they still find displeasure as to where they are, the good news is that discovering unhappiness/hopelessness together is the very first step to renewal.
In my vocation, I have seen many cases of renewal, but the one thing evident in them all is that both decided things are not as they should be and that hiddenness does not bring life. And that simple decision takes courage because you have to abandon your superficial image of “all-rightism.” No, it’s not all-right. Your marriage is worth fighting for under God; your spouse is worthy of your repentance. In most cases, divorce is not the solution to your woes, it’s the dreadful end of something that could have been a visible manifestation of goodness, truth, and beauty in the world.
I’ve had the joy of doing pre-marital counseling for over 20 couples. We cover a host of topics like communication, intimacy, submission, love, conflict, finances, etc. On the last session, I’ve developed a category called, “What a Church expects from newlyweds.” For most, this is a topic they’ve never heard discussed before, and one which I think is of fundamental importance at the beginning of a new life together as husband and wife. In this session, I provide ten things that a church should expect from newlyweds. Most of these are incremental steps. Most of these are things to be developed in a lifetime. I will try to offer a basic summary of each category once or twice a month and then attempt to gather all these things together into an article that pastors or parents can give their sons and daughters as they prepare to get married.
I will begin with the first (additional elements include, “public life of faith,” “hospitality,” “Christian charity,” etc.
a) Church Attendance (Ps. 122:1; Heb. 10:25)
The word “attendance” doesn’t exactly capture this first point, but it is used due to its common usage in church life. When a pastor says that church attendance is important, what he is really saying is that you attend church to be formed by its worship. Being in church is not just to be physically present, but to be willing to be transformed by something and Someone outside of yourself.
Newlyweds cannot grasp the significance of marriage unless they are in submission to a ritual that they themselves cannot perform outside of a corporate gathering. As a newly married couple, you are to make the decision of going to church once in your life, not every Saturday night. To be a responsible couple before God and his Church, you need to commit with one another that outside of unexpected circumstances, the act of being in church and your willingness to be transformed by worship through the renewal of the mind is of utmost importance.
There can be no faithful marriage outside of participation in the great marriage renewal that occurs each Lord’s Day between our Lord Jesus and his Bride. Any idea that conveys to newlyweds that marriage is about making independent choices outside any authority structure is destructive. In fact, newlyweds can hope for a fruitful marriage only within the bounds of regular church life, which begins with the worship on the Lord’s Day.
I have been fairly open about my concerns for the sexual problems in our culture, especially in the evangelical church. After all, judgment begins in the house of God. I spoke recently about the pressures young Christian ladies face (and let us not forget the godly men) to view sex as just an ordinary act in any relationship. “Purity before marriage is a Puritan thing, antiquated, fit for a legalistic society,” they say.
I want you to oppose that mindset at all costs, but I also want you to know that purity is not defined by one consequential sin. In other words, if you have lost you virginity due to naivete or deceit or for any other reason, you are not therefore branded with an impurity mark forever. This would be the most anti-Gospel message one could ever hear. Your purity is given by Jesus who is altogether pure. He died for all your impurities. So, acknowledge your sin to God. Seek wisdom from those who most care for you. Seek counseling and accountability as a young couple, or perhaps move to better relationships or remain single for as long as it takes. But don’t allow those mistakes to take you to dark places. Yes, there may be consequences. And why wouldn’t there be? Your body is the temple of the Third Person of the Godhead! However, it’s not what you did that will define you, but how you choose to deal with that decision that purifies you or leads you to more impure acts.
I know adults who had terribly impious and immoral college years, but they have learned from those mistakes and now live fruitful lives filled with joy. So, I want you to be aware of how both of these ideas function. The value and goal of sexual purity are good and beautiful, but to idolize such things and to treat those who have failed to maintain those goals as secondary citizens is…let’s say, impure.
So, treasure purity. But purity is not a once-for-all thing, it’s more like sanctification. Impurity should propel us to repentance which should propel us to purity in life and with one another.
I hope this helps balance the conversation in a positive way.
We live in a culture that views headship as abusive. In the Bible, however, headship is central to the stability of the home. Protestant and evangelical men need to see this headship in the context of the great covenant responsibilities that come with that role. The man who views his headship cavalierly views his role in the home with un-biblical eyes.
I have met many men who come to see the need for headship in the home and have made the necessary changes to their husbandry. Some of these men came to these convictions late in life, and therefore, the changes occurred too quickly; especially for their families. They went from rarely reading the Bible themselves to requiring family devotions with a 45-minute sermon. Dad went from barely feeding his family spiritually to stuffing his family. Children grow up dreading the evening “services”, and the wife, on the one hand, gives thanks to God for the change in her husband, while on the other, wondering if God misunderstood her prayers.
God knew all things, of course. The problem is sinners have made an art of over-reacting. Pastors need to watch out for these types and bring their enthusiasm to a proper balance.
But the Church is not suffering because of over-zealous husbands/ fathers; she is suffering for the lack of any zeal in husbands/fathers.
In particular, husbands are called to meet the needs of their wives. He is the provider, sustainer, and the one called by God to make his wife lovely. The wife is lovely when the husband beautifies her. Jesus is the head of the Church and part of his ascension task is to make his bride beautiful (Eph. 5). He comforts her with words of affirmation. He protects her from physical and spiritual abuse. He is her Boaz and David; a redeemer and king. The home serves as the castle. Pastors usually know when he enters a home whether it is being beautified or whether it has lost its beauty. I am not referring to neatness and tidiness; I am referring to the grace of a home. When that pastor leaves, he may have just left a pretty tomb with dead man’s bones. Grace makes a home, and the husband is the grace-giver. How he speaks, how he communicates, how he rebukes, how he seeks forgiveness; all these things demonstrate and encapsulate the type of headship he is embodying.
The husband is a resident theologian. He may not be a vocational theologian, but his actions and speech are the word and deed that his family will hear most often. When the husband lives a life of constant hypocrisy, his lectures will become dull and lose meaning. When his life demonstrates humility and the virtue of repentance, then his lectures, even the boring ones, will sink deeply into the fabric of the home.
The evangelical husband is a lover of truth. Truth keeps him from abusing his headship; truth keeps him from prioritizing his friends over his own family; truth keeps him from isolating himself from the Christian body; truth keeps him from turning headship into abuse. He must be, as Douglas Wilson once observed, “a small pebble that somehow by the grace of God pictures the Rock that is Christ.”[1]
The responsibility of being the head of the home is the responsibility of many, but the practice of some. Headship implies dying for your wife, and many prefer to see their spouse die than themselves. So men, let’s die together for our wives, and let’s show the world that death brings life.
There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.[1]
Luther and Katie’s marriage is legendary.[2] Their marriage is considered the most studied marriage in church history. But what so unique about brother Martin’s marriage? It certainly wasn’t a flawless one, but what was flawless was their union to their Lord. Marriage was not an act of idolatry for Luther; it was an act of worship. Luther believed that marriage was a profound way man and woman expressed their worship of their God.
In every act of communion and co-regency; love and life—marriage is a couple’s environment to train themselves as worship partners in the kingdom of God.
Josh and Alice, marriage is worship; you are forming today a liturgical bond. Marriage is the environment where grace is shown, friendship is strengthened, communion is built, love is shared, and God is adored. In other words, marriage is the environment most fit for a man and a woman to show the world what worship looks like.
This ceremony grounds itself in adoration; because if God is not adored in this institution, this entire mission called marriage has little hope of survival.
And that is why you are here: because you know your mission. You know that marriage from the moment you are declared husband and wife to the end of your days is an institution grounded in worship.
But if marriage is worship, how is this worship practiced? There are many paradigms for worship, but none so concise and splendid as the paradigm of worship itself given to us in Leviticus, the Psalter, and the Book of Revelation.
In the beginning, God calls creation to his presence. He creates it and places under his care. He does the same with you. He creates this relationship and brings it under his care in this ceremony. God has brought you, Josh and Alice, into this sacred ceremony. He has brought you together into this place to make vows before a host of witnesses. He has brought you here to prepare your hearts for worship. This preparation is the culmination of counseling and much wisdom that has imparted to you before this moment and all your days.
But participation in this ceremony requires more than your presence. It requires your confession. Yes, your confession as you enter into this liturgy is one that admits the reality that both of you are in desperate need of your Lord Jesus Christ. You are in desperate need of a Gospel that gives you life! Confess to one another your dependence on the Father as your host, on the Son as your Lord, and on the Spirit as your guide. You make this confession today so you may walk with a pure heart and a humble voice together to the throne of grace the rest of your days.
After being humbled by God, you now walk together to hear the Word proclaimed to you. This word, which I proclaim to you now, is a reminder that your life from now on must always be under the authority of the Word of God. You need to be conquered by it daily; you need to be saturated by its treasures consistently, and you need to be reminded of its truth perpetually. Your song must be the song of the psalmist: “I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word!”
The part about worship that is so fascinating is that it is not merely about passive members. You will in a few moments have an opportunity to affirm your deepest longing to make this life of worship together a reality in sickness and health till death. But don’t say these vows only today, repeat them again and again. As C.S. Lewis once said: “Marriage is maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit.” Practice worship together in word and deed.
Now, this whole worship experience you are embarking comes to a joyful moment–as there will be thousands throughout your life–when there is food, communion, kisses, wine, and rejoicing. These moments of joy need to be recorded in your memories, so that throughout your life when enemies—however great or small surround you–you will have no doubt that there is a table prepared for you by your gracious Lord.
Now, I know both of you are eager to get this celebration going, but you know that the last element that is missing is your commissioning as you—especially the Bride–will recess in splendor and might at the end of this ceremony.
So as this worship continues, Josh and Alice, go, therefore. Practice worship. Make it a habit. Disciple one another. Remember your baptisms. And the God of all peace will renew you by his grace.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] “There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship .., https://www.pinterest.com/misssaralynn11/there-is-no-more-lovely-friendly-and-ch (accessed December 30, 2016).
[2] In Luther’s 54 volumes of theology, he spoke of “marriage” and “matrimony” approximately 2,000 times. To put it simply, Martin Luther, the great Reformer, reflected on marriage more than any other theme in theology.
People of God, after a lengthy series on I Corinthians 15, we are going to shift our attention to a topic of great importance, the topic of marriage. I will be absent from the pulpit these next two coming weeks, and so in order not to start something at this stage, I wanted to give particular attention to a matter that is at the core of the moral decline this nation.
As many of you know, the Session of Providence Church sent a letter to the mayor of Pensacola exhorting him to disavow his proclamation, which stated—among many other things the following:
WHEREAS, the annual Pensacola PRIDE festival is an opportunity to celebrate and promote the history, courage, and diversity of the Pensacola area Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender persons and to advocate the message of toleration, equality, dignity, and respect for all citizens.
This incurred a reaction from some of the conservative leaders of the city. As a result, I was invited to be one of nine speakers at the Standing for Righteousness Rally this past Monday. We had over 250 supporters, and about 100 protestors. Though there were some disagreements in our messages as to how to proceed with this matter, we all agreed that marriage is under assault. Something needs to be done about this both locally and nationally.
The Apostle Paul wrote specifically in Romans 1 against not only the homosexual practices of the day, but he was also writing to liberate those who were being sexually abused by their masters. And this needs to be the source of our response, that the Gospel is liberating. It does not just liberate man spiritually, but also from his or her destructive lifestyles. It frees the captive and enslaved. It saves the whole man. At the moment we are beginning to proclaim a gospel that only saves the soul, we are proclaiming a mediocre gospel; a gospel that does not change the very heart of human idolatry.
This modern threat upon the sacred definition of marriage is not only coming from without the Church—as to be expected—but it is coming from within the Church. Mainline denominations, though decreasing in staggering numbers over the years, continue to pursue a re-definition of marriage. “The Civil Union and Marriage Issues Committee at the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has agreed…to sending the proposal, which could change the church’s definition of marriage “between a woman and a man” to being “between two people,” to the General Assembly for consideration.” This change would certainly be consistent with the pattern of the PCUSA in the last 40 years. Continue reading “Sermon: Marriage and the Public Gospel”
In light of the upcoming book I am editing, I hope to be able to post a few quotes:
The Christian marriage is a Spirit-filled song and dance; as with all dances, the man leads and the woman follows. Together their lives blend into one, as they make the music of the Spirit.
