Have you ever noticed how the most rewarding things in life are often the hardest things as well? For me, running half-marathons is very draining but also very rewarding. Spending a month training pastors in India each year is even harder, but the blessings are far greater. Yet the most difficult challenge I face in life, by far, is being the husband God wants me to be. That is far more stretching for me than being a parent or even a pastor. It is the hardest thing I do, but it is also the most rewarding.
God has used my wife, Nancy, to make me a more Christ-like person. I have had to learn to accept someone’s unconditional love when I didn’t deserve it. I strive to live up to standards of what she expects and needs in a husband. I am learning to forgive as soon as I am hurt instead of waiting for her to apologize and finding myself becoming passive-aggressive to her. The good in our marriage helps me become more like Jesus, but so do the problems and difficulties because they drive me to Him who alone can meet all my needs.
Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the highest rated President this country has ever had. His wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, is the least popular First Lady ever. She was a very difficult woman to live with, an embarrassment and a constant pain in the President’s side. Still, he stayed with her and did what he could to be kind and helpful to her. He faced much of the same in his presidency. He was hated and maligned by many for continuing the war with the south and losing the lives of so many soldiers in the process. But he was committed to keeping the north and south together when it would have been easier to let them split. He was willing to pay any price to make the union work. Could it have been that God, seeing what would be coming in Abraham’s life politically, allowed him to have a marriage that would prepare him for that? He learned commitment to unity despite the personal cost in his marriage, and so he was able to do the same for the country.
Could it be that God uses our mates to build into us the character traits He knows we will need as we move through life? Marriage is perhaps the biggest single event or activity in our lives as far as time, energy and expectations go. It only stands to reason that God would use that as a tool to form us into the person He wants us to be.
God wants us, too, to be committed to unity no matter the cost. Every relationship will have seasons of incredible intimacy and joy but also those of painful distance and relational tension. We go through those cycles. If you look at God’s relationship with His people, the Jews, in the Old Testament you will see the same thing. There were times of great togetherness and bonding, then other times of distance and pain. When we end a marriage because of the we keep from being able to work through it and enter a time of satisfaction and pleasure. It takes time for a relationship to learn to adjust through these and transition from one to another, time to build a history together and time to dig a deep foundation of mutual understanding. Too many couples aren’t willing to invest that kind of time because they want the benefits of a lifetime of working through issues to happen immediately. It can’t happen that quickly.
Are you committed to work toward unity in your relationship no matter the personal cost? Are you able to put the needs of your mate before your own and focus on where you need to grow instead of where they need to grow? Have you discovered that God created marriage to make us holy, not just happy? Do you see your relationship with you mate as God’s tool to make you more like Jesus? Ask God to help you get your eyes off yourself and onto Him and His plan for you.
cto Rev. Dr. JERRY SCHMOYER
Christian Training Organization
Jerry@ChristianTrainingOrganization.org
(India & Africa & Spanish Outreach, Spiritual Warfare, Family Ministries, Counseling, World View)
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