The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  Reflection: You may yourself be looking for someone to marry or you may know someone well who is doing so. Take off the filters and look again at the people you know. Who now shows up on the list?

  Thought for prayer: Pray that singles (especially in the church) would not unnecessarily delay marriage or miss great prospective partners because of these “filters” given to us by our culture. Pray secondly that they would not have a residual negative effect on you yourself in your marriage.

  August 10

  We think of a [mate] as primarily a lover . . . and if [they] can be a friend on top of that. . . . [Instead] look for someone who understands you better than you do yourself, who makes you a better person just by being around them. And then explore whether that friendship could become a romance and a marriage. So many people go about their dating starting from the wrong end, and they end up in marriages that aren’t really about anything and aren’t going anywhere. (Hardcover, pp. 125–26; paperback, pp. 137–38)

  THE FILTERS: 2. We have said that most people in our culture simply screen out any prospective spouses on the basis of looks and finances. A healthier approach is to not merely want a lover but also want a friend. Nonetheless, we still tend to screen out anyone who is not very sexually attractive to us, leaving us with a set of (pretty good-looking) persons. Then we evaluate that group to see which ones we could also make into friends. We propose you reverse the order. Look first for persons of wisdom and sympathy, who show the ability to really “get” you. Then see if you can become attracted to them, because romance is also important. Romanticism based on admiration for character is much longer lasting than romanticism based on a once beautiful but now aging body.

  Reflection: Do you think that it is possible to find someone sexually attractive as much or more for their character and heart as for their body?

  Thought for prayer: Pray that the romantic aspect of your marriage would only increase as you age, and ask the Lord for both the wisdom, self-knowledge, and attitudes of heart necessary in both of you for that to happen.

  August 11

  If you see your spouse as mainly a sexual partner or a financial partner, you will find that you will need pursuits outside of marriage to really engage your whole soul. . . . Your marriage will slowly die if your spouse senses that he or she is not the first priority in your life. But only if your spouse is not just your lover and financial partner but your best friend is it possible for your marriage to be your most important and fulfilling relationship. (Hardcover, p. 126; paperback, p. 138)

  BEST FRIENDS. Every person needs a variety of friends who can provide intellectual stimulation and sage advice that no one person can offer, including your spouse. But unless we put spiritual friendship at the heart of our marriage, we will have to look for our deepest counsel and best affirmation elsewhere. While that does not break the covenant in the same way as sexual infidelity, it makes it hard to give your marriage the priority it should have. No marriage can be healthy if some other personal relationship has become significantly more important to you than the one you have with your spouse.

  Reflection: Would you say you have struck this balance—having good friends and yet a uniquely close friendship with your spouse?

  Thought for prayer: Examine your friendships before the Lord in prayer. If one of them has become more valuable than that with your marriage, ask God for help not to withdraw from that friend but to grow the depth of spiritual companionship with your spouse.

  August 12

  [R]ight in the midst of these patriarchal cultures, and in the face of these realities, God says, “I didn’t put a parent and a child in the Garden, I put a husband and a wife. When you marry your spouse, that must supersede all other relationships, even the parental relationship. Your spouse and your marriage must be the number one priority in your life.” Your marriage must be more important to you than anything else. (Hardcover, p. 127; paperback, p. 139)

  IDOLS OF THE CULTURE. The biblical vision for marriage challenges the idols of every culture. It subverts the individualistic, transactional culture of the West, insisting that the good of the spouse and of the relationship must come before selfish individual benefits. On the other hand, biblical marriage also contradicts the heavily family-oriented traditional cultures. In those societies your spouse is explicitly or implicitly chosen for you by your parents, and your marriage stays largely under the authority of them while they live. But as Jesus says, quoting Genesis 2, we must “leave” our parents to unite with our spouse, a countercultural idea. We will explore what that means in the following days.

  Reflection: Which of the two basic cultural views of marriage most affects you? What do you think it should mean that we “leave” our parents in order to be united to our spouse?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to show you ways in which the values of your family and culture may be affecting your marriage. Ask him also to ground you increasingly well in the Scriptures over the years so you see things more and more as he sees them.

  August 13

  Sometimes I heard a wife say, . . . “Pleasing [his parents] is far more important to him than pleasing me.” Or I would hear a husband say, . . . “Being a mother is much more enjoyable to her than being a wife.” I could also hear . . . “His (or her) career is what’s really important. The career is the real spouse.” . . . If your spouse does not feel that you are putting him or her first, then by definition, you aren’t. And when they feel that way, your marriage is dying. (Hardcover, pp. 127–28; paperback, p. 140)

  THE PRIORITY OF YOUR MARRIAGE. The quote above extends the Genesis 2 metaphor of “leaving” to mean establishing the priority of your marriage relationship. You must not put your job, your parents’ wishes, or even your children ahead of your wife or husband. You must “leave” them for your spouse—who must take precedence in regard to time, emotional satisfaction, and loyalty over every other human relationship. For example, if your job gets the lion’s share of your creative energy and intellectual engagement, leaving little for your marriage—then you have not “left” your career to be united to your spouse. What is the acid test to determine where you are on this? “If your spouse does not feel that you are putting him or her first . . . you aren’t.”

  Reflection: Do you feel that the acid test is a fair one? Why or why not? Ask each other if you are passing the test.

  Thought for prayer: Ask God for the self-control you need to give your spouse and marriage first place ahead of other pursuits and relationships that might provide a more immediate emotional satisfaction and payoff.

  August 14

  [Y]ou can also fail to leave your parents if you resent or hate them too much. . . . [Y]ou may say, “I can’t marry him—he reminds me of my father.” So what if a man resembles your father? You should be judging him on what he is in toto and how he relates to you. Don’t let your bad relationship with your father control how you relate to your partner. You must leave it behind. (Hardcover, p. 128; paperback, pp. 140–41)

  LEAVING FLAWED PARENTS. The first way to fail to “leave” your parents when you marry is to be residually angry at them. There are many bad parents in the world, and they can inflict long-term suffering and grief on their children. But if you resent them, they ironically will still be controlling you. There may be many things that would be good to do in your new family, but you refuse to do because they remind you of your parents or family of origin. It may seem counterintuitive to the modern mind, but the only way for the evil they may have done to you not to triumph over you is to forgive them from the heart (Mark 11:25) as God has forgiven you (Matthew 18:33).

  Reflection: Think of ways your parents wronged you, by omission or commission. Have you forgiven them?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to at least begin the long work of forgiving your parents for where you feel they have failed you. Ask God for help in what can never be a quick and easy process.


  August 15

  Maybe your family’s way of operating was wise in a particular regard, but you should only carry it into your new family if it makes sense to your spouse, too. . . . When you marry, you commit to becoming a new decision-making unit, and to developing new patterns and ways of doing things. But if you rigidly impose the patterns that you saw in your own family rather than creating your own new dynamic, you haven’t left home yet. (Hardcover, pp. 128–29; paperback, p. 141)

  LEAVING GOOD PARENTS. A second way that you can fail to “leave” your parents is if you make your marriage and your new family a virtual extension of the old one. If you are constantly insisting that your husband or wife act in such and such a way because “that’s how my mother (or my father) did it,” then you are creating a kind of straitjacket for your spouse. Instead of designing new patterns of behavior and relation, based on your marriage’s particular needs, gifts, and aspirations, you are forcing your spouse and yourself into the mold of your family of origin. That is both unwise and unloving.

  Reflection: List the ways that overattachment to your family’s ways is (a) unwise and (b) unloving.

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you put your spouse’s needs and desires ahead of your parents’ needs and desires. Ask him for the wisdom you need to devise new ways of life that fit you as a couple rather than simply holding to older, comfortable patterns.

  August 16

  Over-commitment to parents is one problem . . . over-commitment to children is even more of a problem. . . . [Y]our children do need you desperately. . . . [I]t is right to consider parenting a very high and important calling in life. [However,] if a marriage cools, it is natural to get your primary need for love and affection met through the parent-child relationship rather than the husband-wife relationship. But if you love your children more than your spouse, the entire family will be pulled out of joint and everyone will suffer. (Hardcover, p. 129; paperback, pp. 141–42)

  APPROVAL. A third way you can fail to “leave” your parents is to look more to your parents or even to your children for approval and love than you do to your spouse. Your spouse is in the best position to see your weaknesses and tell you about them. Parents and children may offer more uninterrupted adulation and praise. So the temptation to look away from your spouse to parent or child relationships can be strong. But neither of these important relationships can offer you the spiritual friendship, the “iron sharpening iron” in truth and love, or, of course, the deep oneness of romantic love. If you put your spouse second in your life, all of those avenues of love and growth will be diminished.

  Reflection: Which temptation—toward parents or children—are you more prone to? Are you giving in to either?

  Thought for prayer: Pray together that you would be affectionate and affirming enough to each other daily and that you would not be tempted to look to best friends, parents, or children too much for approval and love.

  August 17

  “The best way for you to be a great mother to your daughter is by being a great wife to your husband. That is the main thing your daughter needs from you.” (Hardcover, pp. 129–30; paperback, p. 142)

  YOUR MARRIAGE AS A GIFT. Why is it true that one of the best ways to be a good parent is to be a great spouse? First, it creates a profound sense of security for your children. It gives them a confidence that the world is a safe place to live, and this has enormous implications for emotional and character development. Second, it provides a sustained, concrete, practical lesson for children on how the genders can relate to each other well despite their deep differences. This removes much of the fear and loathing that so many young people otherwise have toward the other gender or even their own. Finally, it will teach children the irreplaceably valuable skills of repenting and forgiving, without which no one can navigate life.

  Reflection: Can you think of other reasons that a healthy marriage is the first ingredient in good parenting? What are the implications of this truth for your family?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God for saving you from the penalty of all your sins through Jesus, and ask him to save you from the power of your sins, especially your failures as spouse and parent. Then ask that he would empower you to give your children the gift of an increasingly strong marriage.

  August 18

  Jesus asks for nothing that any spouse doesn’t ask for. “Put me first,” he says, “have no other pseudo-gods before me.” Same with marriage. Marriage won’t work unless you put your marriage and your spouse first, and you don’t turn good things, like parents, children, career, hobbies, into pseudo-spouses. (Hardcover, p. 130; paperback, p. 143)

  PROTECTION AGAINST ABUSE. No other human relationship should take precedence in time or emotion over your marital relationship. But your relationship with God must come first, taking priority even over your marriage. What does that mean? First, it means his love needs to be more grounding to you than any other so that you can bear the ups and downs of every human relationship, including your marriage. Second, “We must obey God rather than human beings” (Acts 5:29). We must not disobey clear commands of Scripture in order to please our spouse. That protects us against abuse, among other things. It is wrong to allow your spouse to sin against God by abusing you.

  Reflection: What if a husband tells his wife that she may not go to church, despite Hebrews 10:24–25. What should she do in that situation? Discuss.

  Thought for prayer: Ask God for both the discipline to mount a prayer life that draws closer to him and also for the courage to confront your spouse if he or she is contradicting God’s Word in some way.

  August 19

  The reason [marriage] must have priority is because of the power of marriage. Marriage has the power to set the course of your life as a whole. If your marriage is strong, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are filled with trouble and weakness, it won’t matter. You will be able to move out into the world in strength. (Hardcover, p. 131; paperback, p. 144)

  THE POWER OF MARRIAGE: 1. How does this principle work? If “your marriage is strong,” that is, if your spouse, next to God, is the most important source of love and wisdom and affirmation for you, then troubles and failures out in the rest of life will be discouraging but they won’t touch your fundamental self-regard and identity. This is because it is rooted primarily in God and is reinforced powerfully, though secondarily, by your spouse. If, instead, you have largely drawn your self-worth, say, from your career or some other kind of achievement, then a job loss or major setback will inflict a wound that can’t be healed. Don’t make yourself vulnerable to that.

  Reflection: Sometimes it takes “troubles and weakness” to drive you more into the arms of God and your spouse for strength and healing. Most Christians have had that experience to some degree. Can you remember any of yours?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God for some specific failures or times of weakness that drove you to ground your identity more in his salvation. Ask him for the grace to continue that process until the end of your life.

  August 20

  However, if your marriage is weak, even if all the circumstances in your life around you are marked by success and strength, it won’t matter. You will move out into the world in weakness. Marriage has that kind of power—the power to set the course of your whole life. It has that power because it was instituted by God. And because it has that unequalled power, it must have an unequalled, supreme priority. (Hardcover, p. 131; paperback, p. 144)

  THE POWER OF MARRIAGE: 2. You may get a great deal of applause and affirmation from the world. You may be popular and successful. However, your spouse is the one person in the world who knows you the best, sees you most intimately, and knows more about your sensitivities and fears and flaws than anyone else. If that person is constantly showing you your sins without any concomitant words of grace and forgiveness, or of praise and appreciation, then that will be like a wound that can’t
be healed. Your heart will be like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. No matter how many accolades are poured into the top, they won’t fill you with satisfaction.

  Reflection: Look back over today’s and yesterday’s devotionals. Summarize in your own words the answer to this question: Why does marriage have the power to set the whole course of your life?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to help you to avoid ever criticizing your spouse without accompanying it with words of appreciation and grace. Ask forgiveness for the times when you failed to do that.

  August 21

  [T]he key to giving marriage that kind of priority is spiritual friendship. . . . Many Christians congratulate themselves that they have married another believer, but they look at their prospective spouse’s faith as simply one more factor that makes him or her compatible, like common interests and hobbies. But that is not what spiritual friendship is. It is eagerly helping one another know, serve, love, and resemble God in deeper and deeper ways. (Hardcover, pp. 131–32; paperback, pp. 144–45)