What is your marriage for?

Greetings,

Ask most of us what our marriage is for and we’ll say God’s glory. Then the marriage gets hard, and the question we actually ask is whether we’re still happy. We don’t decide happiness is the goal. It just becomes the thing we check.

Happiness isn’t the enemy. Non-believers have happy, lasting marriages, and God is generous to people who will never know Him. But not every marriage is happy, and happiness comes and goes. It can come with a marriage that’s going well, but it doesn’t make the marriage good. The purpose is holiness. Paul tells husbands to love their wives as Christ loved the church:

Hard seasons are one place God does this. Paul says that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3–4). Good seasons matter too, and they’re harder to see. When things are going well, we stop looking at our hearts, and the sin goes to sleep. A marriage that’s doing fine still has plenty of sin in it, mine included. The question is the same in both: am I noticing what God is doing?

That’s the gospel I need on an ordinary Tuesday. Christ isn’t counting my trespasses against me (2 Corinthians 5:19). He has seen the whole of my sin and loved me anyway. My wife’s worth is in Christ too, not in whether she meets what I expect of her. So my call isn’t to love her once she measures up. It’s to love her in spite of where she falls short, the way I’ve been loved: unconditionally, and without making my love depend on her.

Take something as ordinary as getting ready for church. She cares about being settled before the service more than I do. I want that too: a calm arrival, my mind ready to hear from God. That’s a good desire. But when I’m running late and she gets upset, I get angry. Her rudeness is sin, and it doesn’t license mine. One sin doesn’t justify another: “Repay no one evil for evil” (Romans 12:17). A harsh reply also stirs up the very anger I’m trying to end: “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1).

Her sin often shows me my own. When I get angry at being corrected, I’m guarding my pride at being called out and held accountable. So I must deal with my own sin first. Until I have, I’m in no position to address hers. When I do need to address her sin, I first test whether it’s really sin or only my preference. If it is sin, I speak to it in a spirit of gentleness and love, not in the heat of my frustration. For her, being on time has become an idol, and that’s her struggle. For me, the sin is pride, and I cover it with anger.

None of this excuses her. This is about the ordinary friction of a shared life, where my sin is the part I’m responsible for.

The expectation underneath all of this is the real trouble. I start to believe she owes me love and service. Paul turns that around: “Owe no one anything, except to love each other” (Romans 13:8). I’m the one in debt. So I don’t wait to see whether she loves me first. I love her, and I keep doing it when she doesn’t. Love is an action, not simply a feeling. I’m called to express it in tangible ways, in what I say, what I do, and the affection I keep giving when I’d rather pull back. Paul also tells us to “outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). It’s not a contest over who loves more. It’s a race to honor the other person first, and that’s the direction that drives us toward holiness.

The same pattern shows up in the bedroom, from the other side. Desire for my wife is good, and God made it. But my body isn’t mine alone, and Paul says, “Do not deprive one another” (1 Corinthians 7:5). Sometimes she isn’t willing, and I have to ask why before I assume the worst. It may be hormones, exhaustion, a long day, or something she hasn’t told me. When I don’t get what I want, the temptation is to pull back and make her feel the cost. In that moment, my own needs have become an idol.

So the work I have to do is my own. I have to ask the Holy Spirit to show me what I’m feeling, and respond to what He shows me rather than resist it. In doing that, He helps me name the expectation underneath it and hold it loosely, and then I take that expectation to God and ask Him to make me holy in the moment. He is also the one who sanctifies my wife, and He may do it in ways I wouldn’t choose, on a timeline I wouldn’t pick. My part is my own holiness: to be patient, to find ways to share in her burden, and to keep giving her the affection that is mine to give.

The point is holiness, and joy comes with it. Jesus says, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). It’s his joy, and it can stay with you through a hard morning or a cold week, because it never depended on her being on time or being ready.

In the ordinary weeks, when nothing looks wrong, what sin are you letting sleep?

Grace and peace,
Seun

If this one landed, No. 34 goes further — seunadeyemi.ca/reflections/34-how-long-o-lord-and-why-the-silence-is-not-the-answer-you