How to have an Unfair Advantage in Your Marriage

     People who don’t know Christ are doing marriage blindfolded.  You might get along and do OK, but you won’t be “one flesh” unless God is in the center of your relationship.  Doing marriage without God is a cheap imitation of what He intended it to be. It’s like “playing house” instead of the marriage God wants.  I have a pastor friend who preached, “If you have Christ, you have an unfair advantage over the rest of the world that doesn’t know Him!”  This is so true!  Jesus said He had to go so that the Holy Spirit could come.  Once you allow Christ to become the leader in your life the Holy Spirit will be living inside you and propelling you toward God.  This is the same unfair advantage that will propel your marriage to its true destination. This destination is a place of love, harmony, oneness, and interdependence.  It is a marriage that will make God look good to others.  

     Marriage taught Kim and I that there was a lot more to being married than saying we were Christians.  Probably one of my earliest finds on the path was that I was incredibly selfish. It surprised me because I was a Christian.  I thought things would just flow together – after all, we were attending church and Sunday school, praying before meals, reading our Bible, giving… I thought, what more is there?

     The stress of not getting along can be a good thing if directed properly.  Sometimes God brings His goodness to us prefaced in heartache or trouble. It is a great motivator.  By my very nature, this stress that I was living in drove me to look for the root of our problems. I reasoned that if I am a Christian, why am I having troubles in my marriage?  Why, when we used to be so close do I now feel far away from Kim?  

     Through a humble heart and much praying and listening to God’s word, here’s what I learned.   Knowing God is not a one-time decision but a lifelong allegiance that leads to a different life.  Knowing God is not just a prayer, it is allowing God to affect your will. Knowing God is about not just faith as we know it, but allegiance.  In Luke 10:27, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is. He tells us, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'”  What does it mean to love with all your heart and soul?   The word allegiance comes to mind.  Allegiance is a word I grew up with that meant loyalty or commitment.  I think faith to many people means to believe, but it isn’t linked with loyalty or commitment as it should be.

     Knowing God is not just a one-time prayer.  In fact, there is no such magical, mystical prayer in the Bible.  Praying to accept Christ and then walking my own path independent of Him is not Christianity.  

I believe:

• In praying to accept Christ 
• That He died to pay the price for my sins which had separated me from God
• That He was pronounced dead by professional executioners 
• Was buried for three days… 
• And then rose again and overcame the grave (death) for me
• He ascended into Heaven where He is preparing a place for me  
• He is seated at the right hand of the Father
• His sacrifice has paid the debt for my sins, yesterday, today, and tomorrow  
• I am called to live my life every day as an outpouring of my appreciation for what He has done for me.  

     Your faith must affect your will – if it doesn’t, it is no faith at all.  I believe that my appreciation to God for saving my soul should permeate my entire being, affecting the things that I think, do and say.  I believe God should seep from the pores of my skin. I believe He is alive and pulsing through my veins with my blood. I believe He should be on my mind and in my mind continually.  I believe I have so much more to learn about Him from His Word, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, prayer (including listening to Him) and from seasoned believers. I believe His sacrifice for me should so overwhelm me that I must have an obsession to live for him.  

     The Bible says that the cross is foolishness to those who don’t know Him.  As 1 Corinthians 4:10 says, am I willing to be a fool for Christ in front of the world?  That’s what it is all about. A friend of mine had a youth group called “Fools for Christ.”  How appropriate. The world doesn’t know Him. If we blend in with the world, then I don’t see how we can be living the Christian life.  I know a man who claims to be a Christian, but when talking about faith he says, ’’All things in moderation”. Do we really believe that one day we could stand before God and He would say, you loved me too much?  Would He say, you lived out your faith too much or say you told too many people about the most important message in the world? I can’t imagine that. I can imagine many standing before Him and Him saying, you said you had committed to me, but had a casual faith and went through the motions.  We didn’t have a relationship.

     It is not God’s will for us to recite a prayer and believe it is Hell insurance, and then not give Him a serious thought after that.  It is not His will for us to not allow Him to come in and heal us from our still existing sinfulness – selfishness. Either Jesus is Lord of all, or He’s not Lord at all.

     God doesn’t have grandchildren.  A good test for this is to answer the question, “If I were to die and stand before God today, what reason would I give Him that I might enter His heaven?”  The only acceptable answer is that I believe Jesus died for my sins, I’ve asked Him to forgive my sins and have sought to live my life for Him in appreciation.  I’ve asked people this question and heard:

• My grandpa was a pastor
• I’ve known Jesus all my life
• I’m a good person
• I’m a better person than _______ who says they are a Christian, so I think I’m OK
• I once donated money to the church for _______
• God is a loving God and a loving God wouldn’t send anyone to Hell

     None of these reasons are right.  God is a good and loving God so He sent His Son to die for you.  This loving God has provided a way for you not to go to Hell. In fact, once we know this, we would have to step over Jesus to get into Hell.  You may have a family member that was close to God, but knowing God is not about your relationship with that person, but about your relationship with Him.  It is the most intimate relationship we can have… and without this intimate relationship with God, we won’t have an intimate relationship with our spouse, because God is the source of intimacy.

     If we know God, we will constantly be transformed into something different than we are.  We will begin to take on His transferable attributes, things like love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, and service.  How do these things play out in a marriage? As I write this, Kim got up at 1:00 AM because she has a cold and didn’t want to wake me up coughing.  I heard her gently leave the bedroom, so I went to the living room and asked her to come to bed so she could rest better. I told her I wouldn’t be bothered by her cough.  I also asked if I could get her anything. She came back to bed – and didn’t cough. She fell asleep right away. I, however, thought of writing and got out of bed. It is now 3:22 am.  Kim is sleeping soundly and I am not. I love serving her, in this case by going to the living room and giving her my kindness and compassion so she could sleep… and I love it that I am not sleeping because I want to live to serve her. I got that from someone – Jesus Christ.  I love mirroring His love and kindness. Jesus served me and now He is asking me to serve my wife for a lifetime. This doesn’t mean I put my wife ahead of God, but rather that I show her God’s love in a tangible way… a way that will encourage her love of God and of me.

     Here’s another example.  Last week I won the grandpa of the year award (in my own mind).  We keep our grandchildren one night a week. Eden is five and Isaiah is three.  So, Kim and I are in our bed and the grandkids are in their two beds in the other room.   The quiet night is interrupted with crying at 11:50 PM, so I get out of bed and notice Kim isn’t getting up.  I thought it a bit strange that she didn’t hear them, but as I leave I close the bedroom door behind me so she can sleep.  Isaiah had thrown up all over his bed. It was bad – all the way to the mattress (luckily it was plastic coated). My heart went out to this poor child who was crying.  I took him to the guest bathroom and got him out of his pajamas, cleaned him up and then asked him to stay there while I stripped his bed. Being a man (OK, maybe a caveman) and not knowing what to do with everything, I put it in the spare bathtub.  I went to the linen closet and got out fresh sheets, a pillow, pillowcase, and a blanket. I made up his bed and got him a plastic bucket in the event he got sick again. All the time I did this I was loving on him and assuring him he was sick and had done nothing wrong.  I also assured him how much Papa loved him and that it would be all right because I would take care of him. He was so sweet about it! Back to bed for me. Kim was still sleeping – not like her, but ok.  

     Twenty minutes later there was more crying.  Once again, I got up and Kim didn’t. No problem.  Isaiah had thrown up again but amazingly it all went into the bucket.  I got him to the bathroom, cleaned him up and got him back to bed. By now I’m thinking he may be sick all night so I decided to stay up for a while.  While I don’t know how to do laundry, I decided to read the instructions on the laundry products and give it a go. Hey, I like to figure things out, remember?  Let’s see… red comforter – white sheets in the same load – I’m guessing it will be ok (I figure if you are going to make a mistake, it should be an aggressive mistake).  There was no need for Kim to awake in the morning and have the smelly mess to deal with.  

     So, I stayed up and at 2:30 AM all was well so I went back to bed – Kim was still sleeping.  I woke up at 7 AM and went to the washing machine. Have you ever opened a washing machine and while pulling things out, you close one eye – as if that is going to help ease the bad news?  Well, everything looked great so I put it all in the dryer except for the bedspread Kim had made. I didn’t want to take a chance on ruining it so I hung it up to air dry. Kim got up at 7:30 and was very proud of me.  The funny thing is that I didn’t know that Kim had taken a sleeping pill the night before. She hardly ever does that so I hadn’t thought of it. Ok, long story – but the point is that I was so glad Kim got to sleep and I got to serve her.  Believe me, that’s not my nature, but with Christ in me, it has become my nature and I have found that it energizes me to serve her. I was so happy that I could be there for her… and as an end result, she felt loved.

     It’s up to us to claim our unfair advantage in marriage.  God is willing to give it to us if we become obedient and ask.  There are many great Christian books on marriage, but here are two books that have helped me understand that my commitment to Kim will parallel my commitment to Christ.   Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas helped me understand that the closer I get to God, the closer I get to my spouse and the plan God has for my marriage.  Dr. Emerson Eggerichs wrote a good book titled Love and Respect.  This book helped me understand that our needs are different and we need to meet the needs of the other.  Most women need to be loved, to know that he will be there for her, that their relationship is healthy and their future is secure.   Most men need to have the respect of their wife. For me, it also means that I need to know I’m needed; that if I weren’t here I would be missed.  Both books helped me to get outside of myself and into the right frame of mind to understand and serve Kim and to have a great marriage.

Purchase the book Sacred Marriage

Purchase the book Love & Respect