Marriage: Path through the Shadows

What does God intend for us? Only that we have a desire to please Him. Everything else will take care of itself.

I’m participating in a rather long discussion over at Jack’s blog about why America is such a horrible place for anyone seeking a biblical marriage. At least, that’s what I see in this conversation between a dozen or so people, some with their own blogs. And it could apply in other countries, but God has told me to focus on the US. Jack’s doing a great job of defining the issues and summarizing usefully our progress.

There are lots of people happily married here in the US, in the sense that they believe they have hit the sweet spot. And yet, if you have any experience at all with counseling and pastoral work, even just watching it, you know there is something very deeply wrong with that “sweet spot.” We are reminded of Thoreau’s phrase about lives of “quiet desperation” — we can consciously sense the world is a mess and most people only pretend to cope. We ourselves have found peace and joy in the Lord, but people around us don’t have that deep, abiding sense of peace that God has given us. Sometimes they are able to tell us, but even when they don’t, we can see it leaking around the edges.

It’s the nature of being in that good place with God that we want to share it. We realize that we cannot share our peace directly, and certainly not with those who have themselves too medicated — literally and figuratively — to be aware of just how bad things are in their lives. Delusion is a prison where people keep themselves locked in. We can do very little for those folks. But for those who begin seeking an answer, the biggest problem we run into is finding that common ground, that space that God says we actually share, and how to abstract out the parts that are unique to each individual.

You can get that very, very wrong. That’s why we have denominations with conflicting creeds and practices; everyone seems convinced their personal answer is nearly identical with God’s answer. That’s a particular problem of the Fall, but is deeply aggravated by our Western intellectual assumptions. It should be obvious that a shallow change in behavior won’t solve the problem, but our Western heritage assumes that intellectual reason cannot be wrong, even if everyone comes up with their own very different logical structure. Westerners are incapable of seeing that the problem isn’t bad logic, but the dependence on human reason itself.

And then there are other problems. On and on it goes; we who sense that there is an answer to this problem, and that we simply cannot be silent, are besieged from all sides. Every time we say something, there are a thousand objections we must wade through to help the people in front of us crying for help. How do we push through the barriers, even to help only those few who seek help?

So this ongoing conversation at Jacks’ blog, reflected on this and other blogs, is aimed at answering a need that, so far, hasn’t been answered anywhere that we collectively have found. We sense there is some solid common ground between us, but that we are facing a mountain of weeds and wild predators trying to clear a foundation on which to build. We know that not everything should be scraped away; some of it belongs there. But it feels like we are operating on an alien planet because it’s just so foreign to what we have been through already.

And we can all sense it: Just this one issue of finding a mate and building a solid marriage becomes a symbol of much bigger things. So we keep referring to those bigger things. It seems most of the group knows better than to simply push our own individual solutions as “the” way to go; we’ve had enough of that failure. That’s the whole point: Can we identify something that worked in the Bible without dragging in all the stuff that was unique to the context? And can we translate that into our current context?

Several of us profess to having the great marriages we believe God could grant to everyone, so it’s not entirely theoretical. We recognize that we anomalies in our world, but we are convinced it doesn’t have to be that way. I can’t promise that we as a group will arrive at any conclusion, but I’m finding some of this discussion is worth the time and effort. At the least, it triggers recognitions in my soul and prompts me to put into words some of what this pulls up from my spirit. The depth of divine wisdom in the heart still needs good questions to give it life in the context. So even if I can’t contribute much to a solution this virtual council of elders seeks, I am surely finding a clearer view of my own path.

Do you understand that the symbolic image of Israel, standing immovable in the Lord when she was faithful, has a meaning for us? The New Testament is built on aspiring to that image, but without all the trappings of a political nation bound to this world. Just what degree of penetration, and what kind of penetration of this gospel message should we expect in our world?

I agree with the premise that good solid marriages are a manifestation of that vision, even to the point of being a primary manifestation. I have some interest in the mechanisms of how some of us found a good godly match, and working those out for everyone who seeks it, but not without first having a better vision of the wellspring from which those mechanisms flow. I believe I’ve done some of the work on that vision. I’m not sure I can convince the others; I’m not sure how much of it should apply to them. But it appears there is some agreement as we struggle through the shadows between us. I’m certainly ready to keep trying to shed some light on things.

I need to make note again that, from a prophetic standpoint, I am utterly convinced this is a very bad time for marriage. A great many sweet children of God are trapped in bad marriages, and I sense that we are in a time rather like Paul was addressing when he frankly discouraged marrying for some. I feel it’s safe to say that a good marriage right now is a miracle from God more than a matter of wisdom. Your reaction may be, “That’s easy for you to say — you already have yours.” Yes, and I confess mine was a miracle, still face down before the Lord, humbly grateful for His mercy. I fully realize just how unlikely it is to repeat that in our world today.

Yet, I still maintain that it’s possible to build something where it’s more common, even if it remains a miracle of God. This is a bad time for marriage precisely because all of this is about to change, if we can seize the moment. My convictions insist that a good marriage is part and parcel of the miracle of spiritual birth, though perhaps not with every individual. God appoints celibates, too, as part of the bigger picture, but that should be rare. I’m still struggling with the question of what we must do to claim that divine heritage as part of Biblical Law (AKA, Jesus Christ), but my faith says it’s there somewhere. And whatever we find, we cannot keep it to ourselves.

Update: Perhaps I spoke too soon. Every comment I make provokes trolling responses. Trolling is defined as intellectual dishonesty in answering something with the intention of stirring up dissent and disorder, rather than trying to contribute to a useful discussion. I feel bad for Jack.