Married couples will do a bad job of conducting their marriage if they don’t see this penultimate status. Even the best marriage cannot by itself fill the void in our souls left by God. Without a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Christ now, and hope in a perfect love relationship with him in the future, married Christians will put too much pressure on their marriage to fulfill them, and that will always create pathology in their lives. (Hardcover, p. 198; paperback, p. 226)
WAYS TO CRUSH. We have been saying that no human being can ever provide you with the love you need and that only God can give. To look for it in a person is to crush them—but how? One way is that we can’t allow them to have times of difficulty in which they are understandably somewhat self-absorbed and not as attentive to your needs. Chronic illness is an example. Another way we crush them is because we cannot bear their displeasure at all, so we fail to lovingly critique them. A third way is that we overcorrect them, because we need them to have a practically perfect life. Only if filled with a sense of God’s love for you can you risk relationships with imperfect people (and there are no other kind!).
Reflection: Assess whether you have put pressure on each other in any of these three ways, to any degree at all. Forgive and talk about how to improve.
Thought for prayer: Meditate on Ephesians 3:17–19. Ask God to help you not just know about his love but to know it.