Day 4 – How to be Married

So I’m getting married. It’s the way of the world. People get divorced and they still try marriage (or at least relationship) again.

At 42 (I don’t mind telling you) I am approaching marriage for the first time. This will be my fiance’s second marriage. He is 37 and not the same man he was before, so this time his approach is radically different. Not just because he is more grown up or merely because he has learned a few things, but because he has been transformed by the gospel. He became a Christian after his divorce (through an Alpha course at our current church). He took a DivorceCare course and spent several years “waiting at the line of reconciliation,” being an attentive father, and basically learning to be faithful. After wind knocked him off a roof and out of the work force, he spend long days reading the Bible and theology. He has no formal education to speak of, but he is one of the most well-read men I have met. I have two masters degrees, and he constantly surprises, challenges and delights me with his insights.

My fiance’s perspective on marriage in light of Ephesians 5 refreshes, delights, inspires, and chastises me. Our courtship was long and he was so careful. Since he placed the symbol of his intent on my finger, I have been astounded and healed by his grace-filled care for me, but this not of himself, but from Christ through the Holy Spirit of God. He often laments that so much Christian writing on marriage (or anything) is just “therapeutic moralistic deism”: good ideas salted with Bible verses, but really no better than any person’s best ideas, and those ideas might make things “work” better, but ultimately they give us more things to do, placing burdens on our shoulders, not really freeing us from or for anything. So the Ephesians 5 call to a man to sacrificially give himself up for his wife is just a burden unless he stays in Christ (and in so doing to love his wife as Christ loved the church) and realizes that he can only love his wife (or anyone) because Christ has loved him first. A profound mystery.

Because of this, I am eager to share a new book with Kevin: Redeeming Singleness by Barry Danylak. Barry dropped it off at Ambrose Bookstore earlier this week.