Friday's Thoughts on Marriage

The 3rd in a series:

"Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken, If you want make sure of keeping your heart intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an pet. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all relationships; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to the risk of tragedy is damnation.”

C.S. Lewis

One thing that years of marriage counselling has done to me is make me ashamed of men. Of course, a Counsellor doesn't get to see those men who are at the top of their game. I only see those who, well, let me just say that I've become a tad jaded and cynical about humans in general and men specifically. I, and most of the men I've met are the working definition of selfishness. To live with us is truly a commitment to more frustration than anyone deserves.

For centuries, at least in cultures that were shaped by Christianity, the most valued characteristic of manhood was self-control, even self-mastery. A man who lacked control, a man who drank and ate and caroused to excess, a man who was not fit to rule himself was certainly considered unfit to oversee any type of business or government, let alone a family. As Christianity has taken a back seat to those who deny God's existence or who are at best functional atheists, that's all changed.

Every year News Reports of reckless and self-indulgent conduct of our politicians and business leaders reminds us that sexual restraint is no longer the sign of a man of valued character. Believe it or not many say that times have changed for the better; “transmitting selfies” of one's penis to a woman (not your wife) or even a series of women gets a wink and a nod and the man can actually be reelected.

While most of the marriages I see are damaged mostly by the men, women are by no means innocent. The mantra today for both men and women is something like, “Love me as I am.” On the other hand people understand, but only dimly and in a very limited way, that if both of you want a relationship with someone who doesn't want nor demands personal change, if both of you want someone who is genuinely “low maintenance” then you are both looking for someone who essentially doesn't exist.

I have never seen a time when so many people, again both men and women who are not so much in love with the person they long to marry, or who they are about to marry, as they are in love with a figment of their imagination. They're not marrying the person as s/he is, but as they want h/her to be. Since they're are dimly aware that who they want (the perfect match) doesn't exist (as adverstised by online dating companies), people today as never before face marriage with fear. Rather than determining to treat another human-being with loving behaviours - for life - men and women today are looking for a good fit. They're looking for someone who will be compatible; a soul mate, whatever that's supposed to mean. This unrealistic set of expectations frustrates and scares everyone involved because at some level everyone sees that based upon these parameters, relationship breakdown is almost inevitable.

Rather than being a venue for character change and for building a safe place for children to grow (Biblical Marriage), marriage today is supposed to provide fulfilled emotional, spiritual and sexual desires. As a result, idealism and pessimism go hand in hand and the fear of marriage causes most couples to “play house” instead. They can neither accept the person who is before them, nor can they accept loneliness. In fact many mistake the fear of being alone with the ability to love. So they live together in a common-law relationship until someone better comes along. Strangely, Biblical marriage is shunned because it is viewed as oppressive, and then, again strangely it's traded for the oppressive, fearful and hopeless life of “we'll be together as long as we both make each other happy.” In reality, people are afraid to marry anyone too much like themselves: selfish and grumpy, someone who judges others by their behaviours while judging themselves by their intentions.

Because of the new ideas of how two people should “love” each other, this failure by design ensures that marriage is no longer a shelter from the storm. Rather it's two people waiting for the expected and inevitable deterioration of the relationship.

This simply does not need to be the case. Our quest for individual freedom, independence and “self- fulfilment” flies in the face of the reality that any relationship where real love is enacted means the voluntary giving away of all three.

On the one hand you want someone who accepts you as you are. On the other hand you know that you have flaws that need to be changed. You know that anyone who has to live with you will desperately want to change those flaws.

Biblical marriage understands these dynamics and Biblical marriage understands that without accepting this reality, we will not know what it means to be loved nor what it means to love another human being.

More on this next Friday.

Where Were You?

“We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives in deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.” C.S. Lewis.

Have you ever wondered what your grandchildren will say when they review history and ask:

“Where were you when many millions of children were sold into slavery and when children died by the tens of thousands EVERY DAY because they didn’t have enough to eat?”

“Where were you when the weak and the voiceless and the vulnerable had no one to speak for them, to protect them, to rescue them. Where were you?”

“Did you show up grandpa? Did you do what you could to protect children or did you support the very industries that sexualised kids all in the name of tolerance? Grandma, did you help the industries that make money from the sexualizing of children? Did you do nothing like most of the people, mom and dad, or did you resist evil? Did you fight it? Did you work to defeat evil or did you, like atheists, pretend that evil doesn’t exist?”

What difference might it make if each of us rejected Lewis’ description of hell as a way of life and instead gave ourselves fully to the things that matter; if we sacrificed ourselves in the service of others?

What would happen if we lived Jesus' definition of love?

I'm going in for a Total Shoulder Replacement tomorrow so this will be my last post until I can type again.

He Knows

“You don’t know what it’s like to have your family reject you.”
“Oh yes I do.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to feel extreme pain.”
“Actually ya, I do.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be betrayed by a friend.”
“Now, that’s where you’re wrong.”

"You don't know what it's like to feel all alone."
"If you think that then you don't know Me at all."

“You don’t know what it’s like to feel abandoned by God”
“I know exactly what that’s like.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be heartbroken.”
“Um, actually, I’m described as a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief and suffering.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to give up the opportunity to love someone.”
“Are you kidding Me?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close.”
“Of course I do.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid.”
“Are you kidding Me?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be poor and homeless.”
“Darlin, I was born into poverty and never left it.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid of dying.”
“Do you know what hematidrosis is?”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be sexually frustrated.”
“I can’t imagine how you could be more wrong.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be misunderstood.”
“Pfft! I haven’t met one person yet who gets Me.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be unattractive.”
“Have you read Isaiah 53? There was nothing about My appearance for anyone to be attracted to Me.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be hated.”
“Honey they hated Me first long before they hated you. One of the main reasons that I Jesus, your Messiah and King stepped down from My throne is to show you that I will go to any lengths to give you the opportunity to avoid hell. I came to earth to show you that I do not exist outside of your life in a fallen world. I came to experience the worst that this life has to offer and to allow you to do your worst to Me. I did that for you. I came to absorb the eternal consequences of your rebellion against your Creator. I’ll do anything and everything except take away your right to choose. In fact it’ll be over my dead body if you want to avoid my offer of salvation. Yes, I do know what it’s like to feel separated from God. And even though it’s kinda cool right now to play the atheist? I wouldn’t recommend it. ”