Are you married, or are you hoping to get married someday? Are you divorced, separated or living in a hellish union? Is your marriage blissful or is it the bane of your life, or somewhere in between? It is good to marry, and that is not a figment of my imagination!

Many people are confronting awful challenges in their marriages, and I respect them for their courage and tenacity. I sympathise with them because I have been there.

Nevertheless, I believe there are some for whom it would be safer for them to separate. Particularly where there is a pattern of physical, emotional or psychological violence or abuse.

There are people who got married because they loved the idea of being married. It fascinated them. Many of them do not love the idea anymore. Some were just tired of being single. Their childhood friends had all gotten married, and they did not want to be left out. The boredom of being unmarried was getting too much for them to handle and age was not on their side. Some needed to get away from a dysfunctional home, so marriage was the escape route. Others just wanted to have children of their own.

I know someone who borrowed money from a young woman and could not or did not want to repay. He married her, and voila, that cancelled the debt! Some had the opportunity of getting to know someone from a wealthy family, and marrying them was their jackpot!

If the reasons for which you got married were not altruistic, you admit you were wrong; you desire to make personal changes; you can ask God to help you change your motives. Allow Him to transform your heart. You do not need to change the marriage. You do not need to change your spouse.

Well, I want to believe you did not get married for any untoward reasons. For most people, the ground for which they got married is love. Let us leave out their definitions of love for now.

While it is good you marry whom you love, God’s order is for you to love whom you marry. Yes, love your spouse, and let it be within God’s definition of love and your eyes will be single and focused.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
And you husbands must be loving and kind to your wives and not bitter against them nor harsh.
… Train the younger women to love their husbands and children.

“We loved each other when we met. Presently, I do not love him anymore.” “She just drives me crazy.” Many marriages break because we love before we marry, but cease to do so after we marry. The work needed to make a marriage work is no child’s play, and we are often not prepared for it.

“When the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable.” This well-known quote is credited to Dr Myles Monroe. For him, the purpose of a thing is the reason for which it was created; its raison d’être.

Let us bring it home. Why did you get married, or why do you want to get married? What do you think is the purpose of marriage? Do you know God’s purpose for your marriage? Are you living that purpose in your marriage?

Marriage is an institution created by God Himself in which two people, a man and a woman, are bonded in a spiritual union that makes both of them one, culminating into mental, emotional and physical oneness.

In the beginning, God designed marriage as a union between a man and a woman, not between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. By the way, God’s original pattern for marriage was not Adam and Eve and Eva and Evelyn and as many women as Adam can manage. That was all man’s idea. He had begun to define right and wrong on his terms and not God’s, as he does today. The Grand weaver honoured his choice and gave him the space to weave out his own pathways. The story of mankind tells the tale.

Revelation 4:11 tells us the grand purpose of all things created or instituted by God:

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

God created or instituted all things for His pleasure and should remain so! He should receive glory, honour and power from them and in all their expressions.

The grand purpose of marriage is the pleasure of God. The word translated ‘pleasure’ in the New Testament Greek is a word that means pleasure, will, or desire. Is your marriage fulfilling the will of God, are His desires being actualised therein and is He deriving pleasure from your union?

Subsumed under this grand purpose is the mutual pleasure of the couple themselves: the husband is concerned with the pleasure of his wife: how he may please her, not himself; …and the wife is concerned with the pleasure of her husband: how she may please him, not herself.

When this is the case, marriage becomes what it really should be: an unselfish expression of mutual respect and tender loving care between a man and a woman bound together as one in the spirit of love. No challenge can break them apart for here they fully portray the union between Christ and His Church.

Thirdly, it is for godly offspring. Listen to the Amplified version in Malachi 2:15,

‘And did not God make [you and your wife] one [flesh]? Did not One make you and preserve your spirit alive? And why [did God make you two] one? Because He sought a godly offspring [from your union]. Therefore take heed to yourselves and let no one deal treacherously and be faithless to the wife of his youth.

Many are not committed to the godly upbringing of their children. Those who express some form of commitment do not go beyond taking them to church on Sunday mornings. However, see one of the reasons God was passionate about Abraham:

For I know him, that he will command (train, enjoin) his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the LORD, to do justice and judgement; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.

Is it not interesting that God’s commitment to fulfilling what He had spoken concerning Abraham was premised upon how he would raise his children and his household?

God was confident about Abraham’s unwavering commitment to raising a ‘godly offspring.’ Note again that it was Abraham (the husband), not Sarah (the wife) that was primarily responsible for this upbringing task.

And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

I believe that in marriage the husband takes the lead and responsibility for the knowledge, understanding and expression of God’s purpose for them in that union, living together in mutual affection and fidelity, only death separating them.

The husband under divine direction provides the blueprint upon which the marriage and family is built. He takes the lead in that pursuit. This is what it means for him to be the head of the union.

But how can you achieve this? God tells husbands, “Therefore keep watch unto your spirit [that it may be controlled by My Spirit]…” When you are controlled by the Holy Spirit He gives you divine leading and direction in all you do, also He empowers you to produce the fruit of the spirit:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

The attitudes enumerated here are impossible to achieve without the help of God. However, thankfully, the Holy Spirit can lead every believer. Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to be in control of your life and marriage?

Is there mental, emotional, physical or spiritual abuse in your marriage? Otherwise, are you and your spouse committed to fulfilling the Grand Purpose of Marriage?

Thank you. Do not forget to keep living, loving and learning.

References: Ephesians 5:25, NIV; Colossians 3:19, TLB; Titus 2:4-5, NIV; Revelation 4:11; 1 Corinthians 7:33-34; Malachi 2:15; Genesis 18:19; Ephesians 6:4; Malachi 2:16, AMP; Galatians 5:22-25.