Statistically speaking, there are more divorces now than at any other time in recorded history. It is estimated that in some countries like the US and UK, one in every two marriages fail. No one in their right minds would enlist for major surgery with a doctor who has a 50% success rate; neither would you enlist the help of a solicitor who has a 50% success rate if you have a serious case in court. So does marriage still work or has it now become a failed system? The good news is you have a 100% chance of having a successful marriage if you do it God’s way. God created marriage and He never creates broken systems. The reason why so many marriages don’t work today is not because marriage doesn’t work; it’s because we don’t know how to work marriage.
Marriage works when we do it God’s way. The fact that everyone else around you is failing at marriage doesn’t mean you have to. You don’t have to be a statistic. You can buck the trend and confound the statisticians. People fail in marriage not because they don’t have what it takes; they fail in marriage for two reasons: they don’t know what it takes or they are not prepared to do what it takes. When both parties approach marriage God’s way, it works – every time. God did not create a broken system or institution. We have tried to redefine it our way and that’s what’s not working. When we realign ourselves with God’s purpose and principles for marriage, we enlist ourselves for unqualified success at it.
Believe in marriage
Every now and then I come across people who have lost all faith in marriage, either due to a difficult experience they have had or the experience of someone close. They have become cynical, defeatist and negative in their approach towards their marriage or marriage in general. Some people, in order to minimise their risk, opt for living together first to ‘test-run’ their relationship. The difficulty with that approach is that there really is no test-run for commitment. You either are, or you aren’t, which is why couples who live together before marriage have a 30% higher divorce rate than those who don’t. If you don’t have any faith in marriage, living together before marriage will not increase your chances of succeeding at it.
Your expectation will determine your experience. Negative expectations produce negative results so if you don’t expect to succeed at marriage, you are already defeated before you start. Let me reiterate, regardless of the horror stories which may have put you off marriage or made you lose faith in it, you can succeed at marriage if you commit to approaching it from God’s perspective. Believing in marriage will give you the impetus to do what it takes to succeed at it because we only really invest our efforts where we believe we will find success. Don’t let fear get the better of you. What happened to your mother, sister, uncle or friend in marriage does not have to happen to you. You can stop the cycle of marital failure by rekindling your faith in marriage. Picture yourself with the marriage of your dreams and tell yourself, ‘It is possible!’
Make the Word of God the final authority in your marriage
God came up with the idea of marriage in the first place so He knows how it is designed to work. To have the best of marriage, you must commit to making the word of God the final authority in your marriage; not your opinions, or the opinions of others; not your emotions; not what you watch on TV; not what your friends or family say; but what God’s word says. There’s nothing wrong with listening to advice but any advice that contravenes God’s word will not deliver to you the marriage of your dreams. God’s word has to dictate our attitudes and actions in marriage if we want God’s blessings on our marriage.
What makes a marriage a Christian marriage is not that the partners bear the title ‘Christian’; it is that they are both determined to follow God’s instructions for marriage. Jesus asked a piercing question in Luke 6:46, ‘What good is it to mouth the words, “Lord! Lord!” if you don’t live by My teachings?’ There’s a world of difference between accepting Jesus as Saviour and accepting Him as Lord. When we receive Him as Lord, we acknowledge that He is our Master and can call the shots in our lives. Our claims don’t validate our Christianity; only our obedience does. Jesus goes further to make a distinction between people who build on His word and those who don’t. Hear Him.
‘What matters is that you come to Me, hear My words, and actually live by them. If you do that, you’ll be like the man who wanted to build a sturdy house. He dug down deep and anchored his foundation to solid rock. During a violent storm, the floodwaters slammed against the house, but they couldn’t shake it because of solid craftsmanship. [It was built upon rock.] On the other hand, if you hear My teachings but don’t put them into practice, you’ll be like the careless builder who didn’t bother to build a foundation under his house. The floodwaters barely touched that pathetic house, and it crashed in ruins in the mud.’
Notice that both houses encountered the same storm but the outcomes were dramatically different because of the disparity in foundations. It goes to show that storms don’t destroy marriages; they only reveal what the marriage is made of. I love the part where Jesus says the storm couldn’t shake the house. He didn’t just say it didn’t – He said it couldn’t. No storm is strong enough to destroy a marriage built on God’s word. The storm may try your marriage but you will come out stronger than ever if you have a word-foundation.
Someone may be thinking, ‘Well my spouse is not doing things God’s way. Why should I?’ For a moment, forget about what your spouse is or is not doing and honestly ask yourself, ‘Which category do I fall into as I build my marriage? Am I building to last?’ When you approach your marriage from the platform of God’s word, it puts you in a strong position to ask for God’s intervention. If you know what to do but don’t do it because your spouse is not playing their part, you place yourself in a more vulnerable position because you have no grounds to stand on when you approach God. God’s way always works in the end so commit to it and give Him the opportunity to work in your marriage.
Do you need to rekindle your faith in marriage? What practical steps will you take to begin building your marriage upon God’s word?
