Marriage and journey. How do these match collectively? Are they mates or rivals? Does the marriage ring throw extensive the door to mission or dead-end in a cul-de-sac of home boredom? Does “I do” provoke an epic quest or finish one?
As I see it, there are three fundamental views on how marriage and journey relate: Marriage ends journey. Marriage completes journey. Marriage means journey.
The view we take will form not solely our expertise of marriage but additionally our eagerness to press into the distinctive callings God provides husbands and wives. The urgency of main and following typically rises or falls on our sense of journey. The blissful hierarchy of head and physique thrives on quest.
Marriage’s Journey
Marriage ends journey. That is the “previous ball and chain” imaginative and prescient of marriage: Bachelordom names a magical land of limitless potential, unfettered by covenant commitments. Single means free. And the marriage ring, although disguised with gold and diamonds, binds in wed-lock. It’s a entice. Tying the knot maroons you within the doldrums of home responsibility.
On this view, the married particular person spends their life with what-is consistently shackling what-could-have-been. Thus, marriage hamstrings the adventures of life.
Marriage completes journey. The story repeats advert nauseam. It goes one thing like this. A hero has an epic quest to meet: a dragon to combat, a medal to win, a home to purchase, a ladder to climb, a platform to construct. A particular somebody canines his steps, however romance should wait as a result of she could be a distraction from the mission. Solely as soon as the search concludes does the hero really feel completed sufficient to calm down.
Right here profession, desires, targets must not ever undergo the yoke. Marriage competes with journey; due to this fact, it will possibly solely full journey. She is a trophy hoisted after triumph. He’s a crown worn within the conquest parade. This view makes marriage not a basis to construct upon however a capstone to embellish. A hoop shall be a tremendous addition to the trophy room as soon as the partitions are principally lined.
Marriage means journey. Maybe the poet Homer finest expressed this view in his Odyssey:
No finer, better present in all of the world than that . . .
man and lady posses their residence, two minds,
two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies,
a pleasure to all their mates. Their very own finest declare to glory. (6.199–203)
On this magnificent imaginative and prescient, marriage not solely means journey; it’s a essential technique of journey. She is just not (merely) a prize however a companion — sure, a crown, however extra a companion. She helps him full the search. Like Gandalf, marriage pushes {couples} out the entrance door onto a highway fraught with journey.
The Quest of the Ring
So, reader, which view of marriage matches the contours of your creativeness? Whether or not single or married, newlywed or a long time in, your view of how marriage connects to mission has penalties that can echo by way of eternity.
The primary two views dominate our day. They’re all over the place. But how nice the chasm that lies between these distortions and the Bible’s imaginative and prescient of marriage! Within the pages of holy writ, marriage means journey. God calls it into being for a mission, for work and weal — certainly, for despair to foes and delight to mates.
Nevertheless, as a result of we’re consistently catechized by the anti-adventure views, they seemingly have formed your imaginative and prescient of wedlock. So it’s value clarifying: If marriage is the technique of journey, what’s that journey? What did God make it to do? Take into account 4 distinct (however overlapping) facets of the mission of marriage.
1. The Grand Journey
To begin, what’s the chief finish of marriage? What did God make it for? Effectively, marriage shares the identical reply with all issues associated to man — whether or not establishments, governments, instruments, or artwork. The chief finish of marriage is to assist man glorify God by having fun with him perpetually. Glory by gladness is the Grand Journey of marriage.
But it surely’s value urgent a bit additional. How does marriage serve the search of having fun with God?
First, marriage tells the grand story of God’s love. Every union of husband and spouse is a residing image ebook of the covenant romance of Christ and his bride (Ephesians 5:22–33). God tells the most effective tales, and he’s not content material to inform his biggest story solely as soon as. He won’t solely be all; he shall be all in all. So he retells his grand story by way of the substory of each (godly) marriage. God wrote the Nice Story first. Christ and his bride are the unique. After which he created the picture of marriage to body-forth to the world the drama of the hero slaying the dragon to win his bride so he can reign together with her perpetually.
Second, marriage helps free us to take pleasure in God by making us extra holy, that blissful requirement for seeing the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). On this, marriage imitates Christ’s purpose for his bride (Ephesians 5:25–27). The covenant gives a basis for secure non secular friendship during which each man and lady work to uncover what Tim Keller calls “the glory self,” that being God has designed you to develop into: Godlike, big in happiness, cloaked within the weighty robes of glory (2 Corinthians 4:16–18).
Thus, trustworthy marriages present a style of Trinitarian fullness — love, holiness, and happiness. Matrimony is a God-given technique of going additional up and additional in.
2. The Common Journey
Underneath the brilliant banner of the Grand Journey, God has commissioned all marriages to undertake two extra particular adventures. Allow us to name the primary the Common Journey. God issued this quest to the very first couple:
God blessed them. And God mentioned to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the ocean and over the birds of the heavens and over each residing factor that strikes on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28)
The scope of this fee takes the breath away! Right here we’ve a cultural mandate that makes all of the epics and all of the quests of fiction pale compared. God’s unique mission for us has three elements:
Have a lot of little ones that bear my picture all over the place.
Draw out and enrich the intrinsic goodness of my world.
Be kings and queens over my lesser creatures.
What an journey!
The person couldn’t full this mission alone. Fruitfulness requires one other. After giving the animals names that match their natures, Adam knew he wanted, and but lacked, a helper to meet God’s huge missive. God then created lady as a helpmate (Genesis 2:19–24). The Common Journey calls for each husband and spouse, however not in the identical manner. They aren’t interchangeable widgets. He’s oriented towards the backyard, the bottom from which he got here. She is oriented towards the gardener, the person from which she got here. The person wants the assistance; the girl matches the necessity (1 Corinthians 11:9). Collectively, and solely collectively, are they meet for God’s mission. The journey takes two — each physique and head.
3. The Nice Journey
God by no means revoked this unique mission, however when the brand new Adam got here into energy, he superior it with a brand new fee:
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go due to this fact and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them within the identify of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, instructing them to look at all that I’ve commanded you. And behold, I’m with you at all times, to the tip of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20)
King Jesus sends his individuals on the Nice Journey of declaring his identify the place they don’t know him, bearing his authority the place they oppose him, and exhibiting his magnificence the place they don’t treasure him. Within the wake of his utter overcome the cosmic powers of darkness and his trampling of dying within the dust, the newly topped King of kings points a kingdom manifesto to his residents. All that the god of this world tempted me with, I’ve plundered from him. I’ve dominion. The nations are mine. Go and reclaim them. Summon my elect from the very fringes of the world to come back to my marriage ceremony feast. Bear a lot fruit. Put on my identify and wield my phrases.
The Common and the Nice step in concord. And although kingdom-minded singles play a vital function within the Nice Journey (1 Corinthians 7:32), marriage stays God’s normative technique of carrying out each missions. Godly males and godly ladies make godly marriages with the fruit of godly kids. These godly households type godly church buildings that blossom into godly communities with godly tradition. And people godly outposts unfold their godly pleasure over lands and throughout seas. Thus, the gospel marches forth to the beat of hymns sung at household tables. It advances as trustworthy {couples} step throughout lawns and continents with grace of their blood and pleasure of their bones.
God likes to make Christ-centered marriages disproportionately fruitful in constructing his kingdom. Marriage was made for this.
4. The Given Adventures
Underneath the banner of the Grand, Common, and Nice, which all marriages share, every particular person marriage has a Given Journey — a specific quest, mission, or endeavor, a singular half God wrote that marriage to play. Removed from ending desires, marriage makes them attainable.
My spouse and I’ve a function assertion that flies over all the pieces we do:
Our function is to amplify the glory of the triune God by absolutely having fun with him and by working for the enjoyment of all individuals in King Jesus as the one supply of reality, goodness, and wonder.
Although you would possibly change our wording, this banner flies over each marriage. It’s our try to seize the Grand, Common, and Nice. But, that function might be fulfilled in 1,000,000 methods, a billion methods, in as some ways as there are people God created. So we needed to get extra particular. How precisely has God outfitted our household — with wishes, presents, and desires — to meet that function? What’s our Given Journey? After a lot prayer, I discerned:
Our blissful quest is to wield imaginative language — with all ability and subcreative capability, in all its kinds and with all its enchanting energy — to awaken pleasure as a signpost to the triune God.
Briefly, we purpose to kindle want for God with fittingly stunning phrases. This quest completely marries my deep love of phrases and subcreation with my spouse’s storytelling expertise and unflagging help. I’ve niggled with the wording (as you’d count on) through the years, however this has been our journey for creeping up on a decade. God keen, we’ll pour out the remainder of our lives on this path. It’s the Manley quest.
Discern Your Quest
Brothers, as the pinnacle, you set course. Have you ever embraced the Grand, Common, and Nice Adventures revealed in God’s phrase? Have you ever discerned the Given Journey God has for you? For those who’re married, how can she assist if in case you have no holy ambitions to try for? For those who’re not but married, there isn’t any higher method to discover a good helpmate than a Given Journey (and a person on mission could be very enticing). For those who don’t know your quest, ask God to information you. What expertise (confirmed by others) has he given you to hone and husband? What good wishes blaze in your coronary heart?
Treasure these up and attempt to write a sentence capturing your loved ones mission. Write it in pencil, figuring out God could shift it as he’ll. Let sensible counselors converse into it. Take a look at it. Invite your spouse to sharpen and beautify it. After which spend your life on that path!
God designed the entire affair of marriage to be wildly, uncomfortably adventurous. As with Gandalf, tales and adventures sprout up wherever godly marriages are discovered. They at all times have, and that’s the purpose.
