The Three Things that Make a Happy Lifelong Marriage that Pleases the Lord
We all know what we want for the most part, but that doesn’t mean very many of us know how to get it and keep it. The truth is that having a happy marriage, just like being happy in general, doesn’t come from trying to have a happy marriage. If your priority is your marriage, it will become an idol, and all idols will eventually disappoint. Only God can be your highest priority if you want life to yield the fulfillment and contentment and, yes, happiness you seek, and the only way to make God your highest priority is to trust Him. If you don’t trust God (that He loves you and will help you, not hurt you—that His will, as revealed in Scripture, is 100% true, good, right, and reliable, and that it will bless you, not curse you), then you won’t prioritize His will and obey it. Instead, you’ll prioritize and obey whatever you do trust in. The problem with that is that nothing you trust in other than God can give you success. The Lord plainly says, “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” (Luke 11:23 ESV). That means efforts done outside the will of the Lord cannot produce good fruit, and you always know a tree by its fruit (Matt. 12:33).
What does this have to do with marriage? —Everything! Three things are essential foundations of a happy lifelong marriage that pleases God: (1) Trusting Him, (2) Depending on Him, and (3) Living out your marital role as unto God and not as unto your spouse. Let’s explore them together.
God’s word instructs husbands and wives that marriage came from God and that He instituted it for His own purposes. It’s for our good but for His purposes! His word teaches us what marriage is and gives us clear rules about it. Stated in as simplified a way as possible, these include: (1) Marriage is a privilege afforded to many but is not a right (Matt 19:12); (2) Marriage is between one biological man and one biological woman for life (Gen 2:24); (3) Divorce isn’t intended ever to happen and when it does, somebody sinned (Mark 10:9); (4) God disapproves of divorce at will and for just any reason (Matt 19:3–6); (5) Husbands and wives have distinct roles in marriage and though each role is a blessed service to the spouse of the opposite sex, the responsibility to fulfill each role is to the Lord and not to the spouse (Eph 5:21–33)—in other words, husbands’ and wives’ roles in the marriage aren’t conditioned on their spouse’s worthiness, but the Lord’s; and (6) Marriage will, ideally, produce the fruit of godly offspring (Mal 2:15) which makes husbands fathers and wives mothers responsible to raise their children under the Lord’s discipline and into His instruction (Eph 6:4). It must be said that even if a couple isn’t blessed with the ability to have biological offspring, there are many children in need of fostering or adoption, and taking care of orphans is “pure and undefiled religion” (Jas 1:27). Isaiah 54:1 and Galatians 4:27 are in the Bible and can be true for any couple if they have a will to dedicate their lives to help produce godly offspring. A man is blessed more by having more children (Ps 127:3–5), and a wife will be preserved in childbearing (1 Tim. 2:15). After all, the first command in Scripture is, “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28)! Having many children is an investment in the kingdom of God and in future happiness. It’s difficult in the early stages but bountifully rewarding in the end.
Do you trust God? If you do, you’ll know His ways are higher than yours, and you’ll make every effort to be a husband or wife as His word teaches. You’ll have the best marriage possible. If you don’t trust God, you’ll do marriage your own way, and all anyone can say is good luck because you’re going to need it!
How can we succeed in living according to a standard as high as God’s? That’s probably the second or third most important question in life, right behind “Who is Jesus?” and “What must I do to be saved?” The answer is that God has promised to help us obey His will. One of the most evident truths revealed in the Old Testament is that no one from Moses to Malachi ever succeeded in keeping God’s Law with the perfection required to earn salvation. God spoke mercifully through the prophets Jeremiah (31:31-34) and Ezekiel, promising to, one day, make His people (including us) able to serve Him acceptably. In Ezekiel, for instance, the Lord said,
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (36:26–27 ESV).
At the conclusion of the first gospel sermon after Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven, the apostle Peter proclaimed, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38 ESV). The apostle John says, “Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us” (1 John 3:24 ESV).
We must freely want to follow the Spirit and seek His direction, guidance, and support through Bible study and prayer (Gal 5:16, 25). Still, we can know that if we have obeyed the gospel, God has sent His Spirit to dwell within us, and He will help us if we renounce any thought that we can make ourselves worthy by our efforts and depend entirely on His guidance and support. By the will of God the Father, through the forgiveness and mediation of the Son, and in the regenerating, transforming power of the Holy Spirit, being good husbands and wives is well within the reach of us all.
Finally, realizing the sanctification of the Spirit doesn’t happen all at once but over time through continual spiritual growth (1 Pet 1:2; 2 Pet 1:8, 3:18), every husband and every wife must be prepared to forbear and forgive their spouse’s failures and remain willing to love, respect, serve, and submit as required by Scripture, not primarily as duty owed the spouse, but as obedience to Christ. A Christian husband loves his wife not on the condition that his wife respects him, and a Christian wife respects her husband not on the condition that her husband loves her, but both fulfill their obligations because the Lord commands them to. I write with all compassion here, realizing some followers of Jesus feel trapped and enslaved in an unhappy marriage. If your life or the lives of your children are in danger, get out of the environment, but don’t get a divorce. Seek your sinful spouse’s correction, healing, and restoration, and then marital reconciliation. The Lord has not made allowance for divorce and remarriage based on physical or verbal abuse. Do not forget this!
In many cases, there is no abuse, just dissatisfaction tempting a spouse with a gnawing desire to seek satisfaction outside the marriage. Resist it with everything! If you feel like a slave in your marriage, fine, act like one as Jesus’ apostle instructs:
Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free. (Eph 6:5–8 ESV).
So, if you want a happy and fulfilling marriage to be a part of your life, you must trust that God’s plan for marriage will work and dedicate yourself to following it. To do that, you must make pleasing God your only purpose in life and seek His help to do it because, without His help, you’ll surely fail. And you must resist the temptation to repay imperfection with sin. Your spouse will never fully deserve the kind of love and respect God calls you to give. Give it anyway, not because he or she deserves it, but because God does!
—JLP
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