Marriage the goal? Love the goal? What?

It's not unusual for a couple to find a bit of hesitancy in their hearts as they approach their wedding day. After all, marriage is just the most important decision a couple will ever make in life! But when that hesitancy becomes overwhelming, it may be wise to step back and consider the readiness of the relationship for marriage.

But that is asking a lot. It takes an unusually mature couple to do that. Most couples would see such a consideration as a step toward relational break-up. So, rather than face the issues, they suppress them and plow through the wedding day. But what often follows is a very rough go at their early years of marriage; a rough go that may have been avoided had they thought bigger than the wedding day.

Courtship is like baking a cake. There is a proper amount of time in which the cake must bake. And, there is a proper time to take the cake out of the oven. If you hurry the process, what do you have? You have a flat cake! But if you go with the process, you get a plump and sweet cake ready for a wedding. Love must be the goal, not marriage. What’s the difference?

Love is a life-long pursuit. Marriage is merely something to collect along the way in that pursuit. When love is the pursuit, a couple is more concerned for the growing health of a relationship over a lifetime. But when marriage is the pursuit, only the wedding day is the concern. Somehow, the couple thinks that that day will secure love for a life-time. It won't.

The wedding date is one event in the life-long pursuit of love. It is a very significant event, but still only one piece of the greater picture. To take the time to let a relationship mature, like a cake in the oven, is a great act of love. In the bigger picture, love will know a greater joy with far less detours and rough roads when the actual wedding date is put in its proper place.

Wisdom Workouts:

There are endless examples to illustrate the dynamic nature of the pursuit of love as the goal in marriage. But what about you? The following chart may serve as a kind of thermometer to test weather love, or marriage, is your goal. It is important to keep in mind that your self-evaluation is not dependent on having one, three, or even five of the following tendencies in either chart. It is about the general picture. Are you dominant in one or the other? It is the big picture that may tell the story.

WHEN MARRIAGE IS THE GOAL

You try to meet up to expectations
You are a fault finder
You put up a front
You manipulate
You tend toward hurrying action
You make marriage plans without wise counsel
You see only your need
You feel unsure in the relationship
You fear of losing the relationship

You are partner-centered only
You withdraw from others
You are jealous and possessive
You need to rush to marry
You feel marriage is a solution
You want what is expedient
You are emotionally driven
You are self-absorbed
You are selfishly sensual
You tend to seek to be alone
You have a shallow romance

WHEN LOVE IS THE GOAL

You feel free to be yourself
You accept faults
You are transparent
You communicate without fear
You are content to prove the relationship in time
You seek wise counsel before making marriage plans
You see the other’s need first
You are secure in the relationship
You have no fear but feel free
You are other-centered with your partner
You engage with others
You feel safe and secure
You have all the time do grow
You take personal responsibility for growth
You want what is best
Your relationship is based on commitment
You consider others
Your emotions are under control
You share your time with others

When marriage is the goal, all that remains is to walk that aisle. Once accomplished, the goal is attained. But when love is the goal, a couple enters into a life-long adventure that is never fully realized. What a joy to think our love will be stronger at eighty than at the wedding day.

What happened to men?

Paul W. Tibbits was the commander and pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Retiring in 1976 at the rank of brigadier general, Tibbits was slated to become one of the celebrated figures of history.

Years following his retirement, in a biographer’s interview, Tibbits was asked a seemingly odd question: “What did you do with your uniform?” The biographer had in mind to magnify the importance of the man who wore the uniform. Tibbits was simple in his response.

“I turned it in.”
“And what did you get in return?”
“I got a ‘chit’ from the supply sergeant telling me that I turned it in.”
“Do you have any idea what your uniform would be worth today?”

Tibbits was unmoved by the question and took command of the biographer's quest:

My military career was merely one of a man among men. As men, we embraced what was before us with a sense of responsibility. When we left that responsibility, we hung up our uniforms, and went on to embrace the next. It was not common for our men to glory in the past. The past was gone. There would be new responsibilities. We looked forward to becoming husbands, and fathers, and grandfathers. And with each new phase of life we once again would be merely a man among men.

Such a spirit is reminiscent of a day gone by. If there is anything the feminist movement has accomplished, it is the feminization of men. I have noticed a changing trend since the 70s. It once was common to discuss significant issues with husbands and fathers. But as time passed, the men have receded into the shadows of silence while women have emerged to take their place. What happened to the men? You will find them among their hobbies and toys while the women blaze the trail of leadership. I am not suggesting a problem with women but a void among men. Jesus shows something of that void by his example. As he looked to the cross, the hour of responsibility commanded his action. The Gospel of John tells the story:

Now my soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, "Father, save me from this hour?" But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name (John 12:27-28).

It is a courageous passage. In full awareness of the cross before him, Jesus held his troubled heart in one hand, and his greater purpose in the other. With both before him, his troubled heart gave way to his greater purpose.

Men are wired to take initiative and assume responsibility. When we do we find our worth. And when we don’t, we wither away. Martin Luther was a sixteenth century reformer. But more than that he was a pastor at heart. When asked about how to deal with male depression he gave the good solution: “Go harness the horses and spread manure on the fields” – get up, stop thinking about yourself, do the next thing, work hard, and create something good for someone else. That seems like helpful advice to me. He met men at their nature. The Bible agrees.

Genesis is the Bible book of foundational beginnings. In it we read how God created man and then placed him in a garden to cultivate it, “Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Verse 18 follows, “Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'" Among the many questions this passage may provoke, one seems clear: Before God gave Adam a wife, he gave him a job. Man was made to work and find satisfaction in it. The nature of that work is meaningfully shaped in the spirit of creation, provision, oversight, guidance and care. This is the spirit in which a husband is to love his wife and family. God places the ball of leadership in the court of the man, not the woman.

I recently was listening to a radio talk show. The topic was on the positive images daughters have toward their fathers. The radio host asked women call in and tell their story. One was particularly insightful to me. The woman, now older with a family of her own, spoke how her father was always the tower of strength and stability to the family. She told that her father always appeared to be confidently in control, cheerfully positive and relentlessly reassuring. The woman then went on to say something like this:

It was only in later life that I learned that my father carried heavy burdens. He pounded the pavement for jobs in a time where jobs were hard to come by; we felt like the richest family on the block. He anguished over the thought of not being able to meet the needs of his family; we knew only abundance in our every want. He never showed his tortured heart; to us he was the happiest man on earth. And when his health began to fail, he stood tall on the inside and presented himself as the husband and father who would never fail us. He was so alone but we were never alone.

I have a feeling that the above testimony of the daughter may strike a cord of satisfaction in the soul of many men. I have a feeling that her testimony may even sound a kind of trumpet call to something deep within the soul of a man. Perhaps it may even compel a man to courageously say: that’s the man I must be!

Thinking Again about Unity and Equality

Billy Graham’s wife passed away on June 14th of this year, 2007. Billy is plodding along but with a limp—he is missing his complement.

I get a kick out of the reports of Billy’s response when asked, “How did you become the greatest evangelist in history?” The reports tell how Billy would look his eyes heavenward and say, "It was God who did this." How heavenly is that? I believe it. God did it. After all, God gave him Ruth Bell as his wife.

Ruth Bell Graham was the witty one of the two—the quick one too. On one occasion she was asked if she had ever contemplated divorce—divorce is the big cardinal sin in Christian circles! Ruth responded, “Divorce? No. But murder, often!” Billy will miss his witty and colorful complement. She kept his feet on the ground.

Being the prominent woman that Ruth Bell was, she was often approached from the feminist movement on her position regarding the equality of the sexes—the idea of 'sameness' was a big issue in the 70’s and remains so today. On one occasion, Ruth was quoted to have said: “When two are exactly alike, one is not needed!”

When it comes to marriage, the cry for ‘equality’ is a hollow voice. It claims to offer personal dignity but results in cold contractual independence. It may preserve equity but it won't cultivate intimacy.

The Bible says very little, if anything, about equality. It speaks of something more beautiful than equality. It speaks of unity. Equality seeks just due. Unity complements. When two differing roles join together to serve the other, there is unity.

That was Paul’s point in Ephesians 5:21-31. The union of the man and woman in marriage finds its design in the statement: “For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31).

I get a kick out of the modern Internet dating service that seeks to match couples on compatibility. I am not apposed to that. But Ruth Bell has a point too. Think about it.

Hi dear.
Hi dear.
What would you like for breakfast?
Eggs.
That’s exactly what I was thinking!
What would you like to do today?
Read.
Why, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Would you like to have some people over for dinner?
No, I don’t feel comfortable in the presence of others.
Neither do I. Let’s just be alone; always isolated and calcified in our sameness, forever and ever.
That sounds so wonderful to me dear!

I like Ruth’s response, “When two people are exactly alike, one of them is not needed!” Appreciating difference is a challenge. Seeing and assimilating difference is energetic growth. Compatibility is important. Difference is too. Learning to let difference press us out of our comfort zone may be uncomfortable but it makes for an exciting adventure.

Wisdom Workouts:

Given the design of complement in marriage, how would you answer the following questions: How do you know this person is the right one for you? Be careful! Are you looking at similarity? Or are you looking at complement?

• What do you find is the growing attraction in your intended mate? Again consider the idea of likeness and complement—there is a BIG difference.

• Do you ever have problems communicating as a couple? If you do, why do you think you do? If you don’t, perhaps you need to consider a different relationship. If you are not sparking in conflict, you are not helpful to each other. Remember, compatibility is something to grow into.

• In what ways do you complement each other? Are you thinking sameness?

• Big question: Can you love, learn and grow by the radical difference that your mate is from you? If you can’t, you should look to someone else. This relationship is not for you!