“For
better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until
death do you part?” inquires the clergyman.
And your response, “I do.” “I now
pronounce you husband and wife!” proudly proclaiming the clergyman. And now it is life happily ever after, right? Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it is
not.
Take into account a celebrity, for instance. Multiple marriages, even more relationships, possibly many children from each one, and so on. Quite the contrary, for those of us who are not amongst the rich and famous have experienced—or are experiencing—the same things, in that love and happiness can be found in another when situations become too complicated to reconcile, is sometimes just not the case at all.
The
Bible talks about how husbands and wives should love one another. In Genesis 1:27 “God created man in his own
image; male and female created he them” (Also, Genesis 2:7 KJV). However, as our Father, always having
infinite foresight and wisdom and knowledge, already knew that it would not be
good for man to be alone, so he made him an help meet (Genesis 2:18 KJV). Man (Adam) would later name is help meet (Eve)
Woman, “because she was taken out of man” (Genesis 2:23 KJV). “Therefore shall a man leave his father and
his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 KJV; Ephesians 5:31 KJV).
“But sometimes I just cannot get along with my spouse,” you say. Or, “They never treat or respect me the way I ought to be treated or respected,” you profess. “Why me, and why am I even in this relationship?” you ask. Well, Paul writes in Ephesians 5:21 “to submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” God needs to be the center of your marriages and relationships in order for them to grow and thrive and flourish. “Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband” (1 Corinthians 7:3 KJV).
Paul also compares the love of the church through Jesus Christ with the love a husband should have for his wife. “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church” (Ephesians 5:22-25, 28-29 KJV).
Anything worthwhile will not always be easy. Marriages and relationships are hard work. Just as a car requires regularly scheduled tune-ups, marriages and relationships require the same maintenance. Husbands and wives should continually pray for one another; especially in the areas where Satan attacks most often, asking for God’s hand of protection over their marriages and relationships. “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:33 KJV).
