As parties go, this one was particularly extravagant.
We were staying with friends. This party was an annual gala that had become a tradition for them. We told them we were fine with staying home, but our friends wouldn’t hear of it. That’s how Darcy and I found ourselves at a highbrow social wingding crowded with people neither of us knew.
After we cleared the front door and said hello to the hosts, Darcy took off with our friends to see something they wanted to show her, and I was left standing in a big room of strangers who were already grouped in animated conversations with each other. There was one couple standing by themselves over by the baby grand piano. I figured, Okay, let’s get this party started.
She was a beauty queen. She told me … several times. Her friend was a heavy drinker. He never mentioned it, but I could count. What I figured would be a cordial meet and greet turned into a lengthy hostage situation.
My new friend hadn’t won the Big One yet, but she was certain it was just a matter of time. The guy with her nodded his agreement and took another sip of his scotch. There was a preliminary pageant coming up that she figured she had a lock on. I had no idea what she was talking about, but she filled me in on the costumes, the backstage mayhem, the politics behind the judging, and the inside skinny on talent. I’d hoped I would die without ever knowing any of this stuff. She said that when she first started, her talent was cheerleading. But she switched to singing and dancing. I glanced nervously at the piano we were standing next to.
Oh, did I mention that Miss Congeniality was seventy-eight years old? At first I thought this was just some harmless senior citizen’s thing and figured, Good for her. She’s having fun. But as she kept talking, I realized this was not only the focus of her present life, but it had been the singular focus of her life since she was in college. She’d been participating in beauty competitions for almost sixty years! I asked about her children and grandchildren. She said something about having some but went right back to describing her life in front of the footlights. I asked her companion, who turned out to be her husband, about their kids and grandkids. He mumbled something and then waved to a waitress and pointed to his drink for a refill. I spent the bulk of that evening listening to this lady talk about herself, while watching her husband get inebriated. Neither of them questioned me about a single detail of my life. But, as you can see, when I finally excused myself and walked away, I could write a book on them.
Whether we like to admit it or not, every married couple’s relationship is defined by something. That something will determine the color, flavor, texture, melody, and scent of the love in our marriage. Since the overarching focus of our married lives has the final say on how we play out our promises to each other, it’s vital that we aim high.
Our discussion in this book has been addressing a simple thought: What if our relationship within our marriage was defined by the same thing God defines his relationship with his spouse—his grace? After we established why a grace-filled marriage is profound, we’ve been trying to get our head and heart around what God’s grace actually looks like played out in the trenches of our daily lives as couples.
We’ve learned about inner needs, freedoms, and character muscles that enable us to bring the best out in each other. The last dimension of God’s applied grace has to do with where we’re aiming our marriage. Every marriage is aimed somewhere even if that somewhere is nowhere. Since it’s not a case of if we’re aiming our marriage, but where, why not aim it at something bigger than ourselves?
Before we look at where Jesus suggests we direct our attention, let’s look at a handful of the usual subjects that married people choose. You might find yourself, or your marriage, hanging out among them.
When we get up every morning, something is framing the bigger picture of what we hope to accomplish. We all live with agendas. And most of us know what it’s like when our schedule is determined by a lot of people other than ourselves. On top of this, there are items on to-do lists that need to be scratched off, kids with inexhaustible needs, employers who expect us to earn our paycheck, and many other demands that make up a busy day. But these aren’t the things I’m referring to. These are the standard features of daily life that simply have to be done. What I’m referring to are those bigger aspirations that hang like curtains in the back of our thinking. These always-there aspirations tend to hold the attention of our heart most of the time.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I make more money today? They may be good at making money or merely wish they were. But whatever money they have isn’t enough. There’s always room in their bank account for more. Sometimes this driving focus is fueled by money they’ve lost. Regardless, these are people who think a lot about wealth.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I feel better about how I look today? These folks either like the image staring back at them in the mirror or want to do something to improve that reflection. These people are usually good shoppers. It’s a worldview enamored by beauty and the benefits that tend to come with it.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How do I expand my sphere of influence today? They’d rather lead than follow. But it’s more than that. They need to lead. But it’s even more than that. They want to have control over as many of the variables of their life and the lives of people around them as possible. These are people who think a lot about power.
And then there are other people who get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How do I get noticed more today? They feel the world would be a better place if more people knew them on a first-name basis. It’s not so much that they want to know these people personally as it is the satisfaction they gain by being known on a grander scale. When it’s all said and done, what preoccupies their minds is their burning need for fame.
Wealth, beauty, power, and fame may not be the things that gnaw away at you as you go through your day, but they’re the four horsemen of the apocalypse as far as our culture goes. A lot of husbands and wives wake up next to people who exist to have at least one of these superficial dreams filled in their lives.
But let’s be fair. Sometimes these things occupy people’s minds because it’s part of their makeup. I’d even go so far as to say that it may point to some God-given gifts. God clearly gives some people a sixth sense of how to make money. There’s nothing wrong with that. And if it’s handled properly, this gift will hopefully benefit a lot more folks than just themselves. And what’s wrong with trying to put your best foot or best face forward? Folks with aesthetic judgment bless us all with their art, design, color palettes, and eye for improvement. As long as they can still love the rest of us, everybody benefits. Some people are not only great leaders but popular ones too. People would prefer these leaders steering their destiny. Someone will always have power. If these people can do it well, why not them? And some people are well known simply because of something extraordinary they’ve done or something huge they presently do. They didn’t necessarily seek fame; it found them.
The best way to know whether God is behind a person’s wealth, beauty, power, or fame is simple: Did they set out or need to become wealthy, to be known for their looks, to take over as much of their sphere of influence as they could, or to become a household name? If so, then most likely, God wasn’t behind those efforts. Their wealth, beauty, power, and fame were the result of their own fleshly endeavors. Generally, these self-directed efforts seldom enjoy happy endings. On the other hand, if wealth, beauty, power, or fame came as a result of their simply playing their assigned position in life carefully, without needing any of these outcomes, then most likely these are the results of their being who they were created to be.
But as I said, our culture worships these four things. Many married couples miss enjoying a greater and deeper purpose because one or more of these kick-you-out-of-bed-in-the-morning goals own their soul. But even more, many married couples miss the depth and passion of their intimate love for each other because one or more of these things have upstaged it.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I better serve my family today? They love their role as husbands, wives, parents, or grandparents. These are people who have a knack at good family dynamics or want to develop some. They need to have a family around them to complete their sense of happiness. That’s fine as long as everyone cooperates. But seldom is it that everyone cooperates.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I do more for the poor and helpless? Food, water, clothing, shelter, mercy, opportunity, and fairness are huge priorities for them because looking out for the downtrodden is a huge priority for them.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I make the world a better place? These people are driven by a mighty cause. It might be the environment, politics, freedom, or human rights. They tend to think nationally or even globally. Their cause is never far away from the foreground or background of their mind.
Obviously, we can all see the upside in these three noble motivations. Most likely, you resonated with some or all of them. Yet as noble as these life goals are, by themselves, they’re still aiming low.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I please God the most today? These people are sensitive about making sure they do everything a follower of Jesus should do. But their holy behavior is driven by a fear of losing something they can’t possibly lose (God’s love) or gaining something they already have (God’s love). Their lives look pious to outsiders looking in and spiritually well ordered when you’re on the inside looking out. They’re conscientious about praying, reading their Bible, meditating, and keeping themselves unstained from the sinful world around them. These are very serious and devoted followers of God.
Some people get up, and the thing that most occupies their thinking is, How can I do things today that add to my eternal reward? These people understand that heaven is not some abstract concept but a real place, and they want to make sure they’ve invested well in what’s waiting for them when they finally get there.
Regardless of some of the concerns you might have with these two goals, especially based on the way I framed them, we can all agree that there’s some spiritual merit for those who want to please God or to make sure they’re doing the kinds of things God rewards in eternity. But even these priorities can still cause us to feel we’re coming up short. And I’ve known people who are absolutely committed to priorities like these who have marriages none of us would want.
Wealth, beauty, power, fame, family, humanity, some noble cause, pleasing God, and rewards are just a handful of examples of the kinds of things people could live their lives for. Throw in leisure, drinking, and beauty competitions, and you’ve got an even dozen. These priorities form the backdrop of many couples’ lives and are the defining feature of their focus. In the process, they create an effect—sometimes, a catalytic one. There may be a reaction because the husband has a headlock on one while the wife is having tea with another. But even if just one priority held the collective focus of your marriage, you can see how it may have little, if anything, to do with the depth of intimacy and heart connection we enjoy. It may even work against them.
Your marriage is going to have a focus. I suggest that none of these things make sense as the primary focus of our life individually, or our focus as a couple. They may be highly leveraged B priorities, but we need to be extremely careful not to let them own first place in our heart. Here’s why …
Only one thing should own our hearts. That thing is a person. His name is Jesus.
When Jesus owns our hearts, everything else and everyone else that is important to us are better off. They’re safer. God’s love protects them through us as well as from us. When the One who loved us first and best is the one we love first and best, everyone else in the group photo will find their stock value going up.
Darcy and I had been married about a decade when she—out of nowhere—just tasered me. She didn’t use one of those real ones like the police carry, though I’m sure it’s crossed her mind a few times in the years since our wedding. No, she picked up an emotional Taser gun, aimed it at my heart, and pulled the trigger.
The kids were still quite little. Diapers, dust, and dirty dishes made up the bulk of her days. More than anything else, the pervasive attitude in our relationship at that time was fatigue. Life had assigned us a piece of music with no rest signs in its score. I wouldn’t say our love was lacking, but our energy, enthusiasm, and patience were running on fumes.
I decided to take the initiative and arrange a nice evening at an upscale restaurant for the two of us. Her birthday was in close enough range that I thought I could slip in a birthday gift—you know, make it a surprise. I’d gotten her a new wristwatch, had wrapped it myself, and had gone by the restaurant to arrange with the maître d’ to bring it out on a dish just before they served dessert. I’d slipped a card in an envelope to go with it. Okay, here’s the part I’m reluctant to mention. You’re going to laugh your … well, you’re going to think I’m a complete idiot.
I wanted to take her to a place where there was live music and somebody who sang classic love ballads. At the time, Scottsdale, Arizona, didn’t offer a lot of options. In fact, on that night it only offered one: Robert Goulet. All right now, just be quiet! I was trying to do something special. I didn’t have options. Michael Bublé was only about five, and Adele wasn’t yet old enough to figure out which loser she’d use for the subject of her next song. I thought this would be nice: a quaint, upscale restaurant; a jazz band; and a balladeer.1
As we were driving there, I said, “Did you hear Robert Goulet’s in town?” Darcy said, “Robert Goulet? Man, I can’t stand his voice.” Uh-oh. “Too bad our parents aren’t in town,” she joked. “We could have gotten them tickets.”
Things started going downhill right out of the blocks. I explained to Darcy that I had no idea she had such strong opinions about him and realized that I should have done a bit more research before I planned our nice evening with her being serenaded by Mr. Goulet. Regardless, the evening was off to a bad start.
But the food was good. I told her to imagine it was Paul McCartney singing beautiful songs to her. She rolled her eyes. Then we ordered dessert, and right on cue, my maître d’ buddy brought the gift and card out on a saucer. She opened the card first. But after the look it created on her face, it was irrelevant whether she opened the gift. I had written what I had thought was a poetic statement (not original to me) on the card.
Darcy,
You’re my reason for living.
Love, Tim
With Goulet’s rich baritone in the background and his jazz ensemble backing him with romantic chords, I watched Darcy read my note. But it didn’t bring a smile to her mouth or tenderness to her eyes. She looked at it with an expression of concern. Then she put it back in the envelope and started to open her gift.
“Hold it,” I said. “Did I say something wrong?” Frankly, I’m so ADD that I had forgotten what I’d written.
She was quiet. She obviously didn’t want to hurt me, but she didn’t want to stay silent on what she felt we needed to keep clear between us. Finally she took out the card, placed it in front of me on the table, and said, “Tim, I don’t want to be your reason for living. I can’t be your reason for living. I don’t want that kind of pressure, because I guarantee you that I will let you down. I’m human. I could never live up to the expectations of someone who needed me to be their reason for living. Plus, I’m going to die someday, and then what?”
At that moment, our romantic evening took a complete face-plant. I was hurt but also confused by the sudden diversion of the evening from romantic to philosophical. Darcy made sure I understood she wasn’t talking philosophically; this was pure theology. There is only one person who can live up to the pressure and expectations of being our reason for living. It’s the person who proved his qualification for that role by dying on the cross for us.
While I was trying to figure out whether to move into a defensive debate or simply write the entire evening off as a bust, here came Mr. Goulet himself, microphone in hand, telling everyone about the lovely girl sitting across from me who was celebrating her birthday. The maître d’ had tipped him off. That same maître d’ brought a chair up for Mr. G to sit in as he sang Darcy a tender love song. She sat there and took it in charming stride, while the rest of the restaurant crowd looked on. Some of the other women (much older women, I have to admit) were dabbing their eyes with their napkins, and when his song was over, everyone gave Mr. G and Darcy a standing ovation.
I wanted to crawl under the carpet.
The world we live in pushes us to live great lives. That sounds like a good idea … unless you happen to meet Jesus along the way. Then you realize that the world’s advice is a trap for fools. God’s Word encourages us to live truly great lives. What’s the difference? A great life is about me. But as you’ll see, a truly great life is lived for God’s glory and for the benefit of others.
Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’” (Luke 10:27). The best way to grasp what Jesus is conveying here is to see our love delivered at two levels. There’s our primary love and then our secondary love. Our primary love has a singular focus; our secondary love has many objects, which we in turn prioritize in a descending order. When Jesus explains that our love for God should be with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, he’s acknowledging that it can’t be all if we’re sharing that love with anyone else. Plus, the words he uses—heart, soul, mind, and strength—cover the totality of our whole being when we love someone. Jesus is making it clear that he wants our love for God to be our first-in-line love—a no-one-in-a-close-second-position type of commitment.
But Jesus adds something to his statement. He adds it because, technically, they’re inseparable. He says, “And love your neighbor as yourself.” We could see these as two different commands, and to a certain extent they are. But more accurately, they’re a couplet command. Doing the first one assumes you are doing the second.
When we love God, that love can come from two sources. It can come from our human limitations, or it can be love we first received from him and are now merely giving back. The main way we know whether the love we’re giving to him is from the love he first gave to us is simple: Do we have a passionate love and concern for others—in this case, our spouse? That’s what a love sourced from God looks like. We can give him all of the lip service we want, but the true evidence that heavenly love is recycling through our heart is how we treat each other.
First John 4:19–21 makes this point: “We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
Keep in mind, here, that “brother” refers to anyone God calls us to love. I know couples who would prefer some wiggle room on this. They say they love God—even work overtime to serve him at their churches—but loathe their spouses. They assume they get a bye on 1 John 4:19–21 because they’re so loyal to God, and their spouse is such a jerk. The Bible doesn’t agree. Love that comes from God is unique: it isn’t offered based on the merits of the one receiving it. Also, it’s delivered in abundant quantities (more than a person needs) and graciously (as though it’s an honor on the part of the giver).
Jesus set the standard for what love for a spouse should look like. His example demonstrates that true love subordinates its own position and needs for the sake of meeting the needs of our spouse. So how are you doing in that regard? You reply, “Not as well as I’d like,” or worse, “Not even in the area code.” Listen, you might be carrying a D-average on loving your spouse above yourself, but God’s grace wants to help you ace the final.
If we took all of the scriptures we’ve looked at over the past few pages and synthesized them into a definition of true greatness, I think it would sound something like this:
True greatness is a passionate love for Jesus Christ that shows
itself in an unquenchable love and concern for others.
This is what the Bible teaches should be the overarching goal of our lives. That’s why we’ve made it the top floor and roof of the house drawn on the napkin earlier in the book. True greatness is the top of the heap of our priorities pointing toward the source of the grace we want to live our life by. But every part of that house has a direct application to our role as a spouse.2 That’s why we’ve taken its individual pieces and connected them directly to our marriage relationship. With that in mind, let’s tailor this definition to the subject at hand:
True marital greatness is a passionate love for Jesus Christ that
shows itself in an unquenchable love and concern for each other.
God has something he’s dying to give us that will drive us to love our spouse the way he loves us.
There’s a passage of Scripture that blows me away every time I read it. It’s a passage you need to dog-ear in your Bible or copy onto the notepad on your phone so you can keep it handy. It’s packed with all the spiritual nutrients we need for whatever life chooses to dish up. Like a biblical lozenge you keep in the back of your marriage, spreading its soothing warmth over the sore spots of your love, this passage is a solid prescription for whatever ails you. Read this passage, and then we’ll pull two prescriptions for a truly great marriage out of it:
Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:14–19)
I want to draw two points from this passage, each building on the other, that summarize the point of this book you’re holding in your hand.
We are driven not by our love for God but by his love for us. God’s love for us is the only thing that can carry us through all that life throws at us, as well as keep all of our other priorities in balance—especially our marriage. Our love for him, though well intended, is still drawn from a bank account with credit limits. That’s why the love we must give to our spouse is the love God pours over us each second of our life.
God’s love, as we shall see, is an extension of his amazing grace. This love/grace has a compelling nature to it—meaning, among other things, we can’t truly receive and not also want to send outward toward others. That’s because God’s grace transforms. It reboots. It does not leave us the same way it found us.
The idea behind the word translated “compels” refers to a pressure—not a pressure to control someone but a pressure that releases power to love someone. The apostle Paul is saying that God’s grace compels us to love. Keep in mind, too, that Paul wrote this letter to a church known for their arrogance, pettiness, territorialism, and dysfunction. This group of believers struggled with the standard issues that couples typically bring to their marriage. But God’s grace obliges those who have received it to lavish it on the people they’re called to love, regardless of how unlovable they may be.
Therefore, no matter what any of us may say is the driving force of our personal lives or our marriage (wealth, beauty, power, fame, etc.), God says, “I want my love for you to be the driving force of your life. Anything else simply isn’t going to cut it—not humanitarianism, noble causes, performing to gain my favor, earning heavenly rewards, or winning beauty contests! Please, just relax in the reality that I love you regardless of how well you jump through hoops or achieve this world’s most envied trophies!”
The epitome of God’s love was expressed at the cross, where he reconciled us to himself. Reconciliation—or the restoration of a relationship between enemies—compels us by God’s grace to love our spouse through the power of the love God showed us at the cross. Because he reconciled us to himself, he wants us to carry on the ministry of reconciliation to others—especially our spouse. When we slip under the covers of our marriage, he’s saying, “I want you to love your spouse with the love I love you with, and if there’s enmity between you, I want you to let my love compel you to restore your relationship.”
When the love we bring to God is drawn from the pool of our human limitations, our response to caring for our spouse comes off as anemic:
• Oh, okay, I guess I’ll drop this.
• Oh, okay, I guess I’ll change my attitude.
• Oh, okay, I guess I’ll be more cooperative about meeting their sexual needs.
• Oh, okay, I guess I’ll forgive.
No! Jesus passionately met our needs. He wants his love pouring through us to passionately meet our spouse’s needs. Coming full circle, then, when we get up every morning, something is framing the bigger picture of what we’re hoping to accomplish.
When a grace-filled spouse gets up, the priority that most occupies their thinking is, How can I let God’s love for me empower me to love others, especially my spouse, today? Grace-filled people are overwhelmed with the love God poured out for them on the cross. Because they are no longer his enemy, they want to be ambassadors of his transforming grace to the people he’s called them to love—starting with their spouse. They do this because they are compelled by grace.
With this in first position, we move on into our day to care for our spouse, as well as love the people we encounter as we make a living, lead, offer humanitarian aid, carry the banner for our cause, or participate in our pageants.
A grace-filled marriage exudes a passionate love from Jesus and for Jesus that shows itself in an unquenchable love and concern for our spouse. This is what true marital greatness looks like. And there are four qualities of true marital greatness that are direct extensions of God’s gracious heart. These four building materials complete our napkin strategy for a grace-filled marriage.
I don’t know who said it first, but the best definition I’ve heard for humility is not thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3–4).
This is an appreciation for what you have and for who has given it to you (both God and your spouse). “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
This is a great delight in sharing with your spouse all that God has entrusted to you. “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:38).
This is an attitude describing the sacrificial assistance you enthusiastically make available to meet your spouse’s needs and best interests, regardless of the cost. “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26–28).
Humility, gratefulness, generosity, and a servant’s heart are qualities that define a grace-filled marriage. That’s how God operates in his relationship with us. You may say, “Nice try, but you haven’t met my spouse. I’m married to someone who is arrogant, unappreciative, stingy, and indifferent to my needs.” Well, your spouse may or may not be that way. But the fact is, we have those same kinds of attitudes toward God, and yet he continues to maintain these four gracious qualities toward us.
There are four things we can do to incline our spouse to embrace the qualities of God’s grace. First, we need to decide that we will offer these four qualities as gracious gifts to our spouse, regardless of whether they extend them back. We do this because that’s how God offers them to us—without strings attached.
Second, we need to make humility, gratefulness, generosity, and a servant’s heart the expectation in our attitude, not the exception. We need to go to the “settings” section of our heart and check these four qualities as the default attitudes in how we deal with our spouse.
Third, we need to ask God for opportunities to experience these attitudes so that they become second nature to us. Usually, daily married life affords us ample opportunities to show our spouse humility, gratefulness, generosity, and a servant’s heart.
Fourth, we need to encourage these qualities in our spouse by valuing and applauding them when we see them exercised. Maybe not every time. Maybe not overboard. But the Scriptures say that when we get to heaven, Jesus wants to say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23).
If God sees reason to applaud our efforts, we ought to do the same for our spouse. You might be surprised to find that your affirmation is just the thing that inclines your spouse to embrace these truly great qualities.
Just think of what the qualities of humility, gratefulness, generosity, and a servant’s heart could do for some of the touchier issues in your marriage. We all have times when we’re beyond our wits’ end. It might be about our money, body, parents, kids, stepkids, time, hobbies, personal burdens, and sex life.
Apply an attitude of humility, gratefulness, generosity, and a servant’s heart to the way you handle your money, your attitude toward your spouse’s body, the way you deal with each other’s parents, the way you treat the kids (yours, mine, and ours), the way you handle your time, the attitude you take toward each other’s hobbies, the tenderness you bring toward each other’s personal burdens, and the commitment you bring toward meeting each other’s sexual needs—humble sex, grateful sex, generous sex, servant-hearted sex. In all these areas, regardless of how bleak they may have been or how hopeless they presently appear—these four qualities of God’s grace will help you make sure each of these categories has a green arrow pointing up!
We’re almost done with our journey of filling our marriage with grace, nearing that point where nearing that point of summarizing our discussion and putting a period to this story. By now, you’ve probably discovered the overarching angle of this book. I’m coming at this whole marriage thing differently from most authors. Rather than focusing on the relationship between spouses, I’m focused on each spouse’s relationship with the Creator of marriage. It goes back to my opening premise that the bigger problem in our marriage is not a lack of love but the absence of grace. Grace can’t be artificially manufactured. We can muster up “nice.” But grace comes only when we’re transformed by it through a relationship with the only true source of grace, Jesus Christ.
With this in mind, there’s something I’ve been wanting to share since I started writing this book. I want you to embrace God’s grace like never before in your marriage. I want you to know his mercy when life’s burdens wipe the smile off your face. But I don’t think this can be done simply by reading a book like this. I think it can sure help frame the big picture for you. But a grace-filled marriage isn’t an isolated decision you make—it’s a commitment based on a relationship you maintain … with Christ.
A relationship with Christ can be no more maintained with a single decision than a relationship with our spouse can be maintained simply by stating a vow. Those kinds of things declare our good intentions, but then we have to put into that relationship a daily, sweaty, sometimes tear-filled effort.
What I want to say next could easily be misunderstood. The legalism police will be ready to scream, “Citizen’s arrest!” But I’m going to take that risk.
It’s extremely difficult to maintain an attitude of grace toward our spouses without regular coaching in grace from God through his Word. God speaks to our heart through the Bible. The more we let him do that, the more his grace becomes the rule rather than the exception in our life. I’m not saying how, where, when, or how long. I’m just saying there’s a cause-effect relationship between how much time we commit to strengthening our relationship with God through his Word and how much ease we enjoy when it comes to extending grace in our marriage.
It’s extremely difficult to maintain an attitude of grace toward our spouse without regularly praying for our spouse. Not the kind of prayers that badger God to knock them in the head and get them to see our way of thinking, but prayers of thankfulness for their love, their efforts on our behalf, their skills and gifts, their body, their hopes, their dreams, and their joys. And we need to offer daily prayers that entreat God to help our spouse with their fears, their frustrations, their disappointments, and areas where sin is trying to get a grip on them.
I think it’s also extremely difficult to maintain an attitude of grace toward our spouse if we’re trying to do it in isolation, with just us two. God has placed his Spirit in many people who could be in our circle of friends. He’s also put some mature grace mentors within the congregation of a local church. Grace-filled marriages are much easier to maintain when we have good friends and a good church to pick us up, hold us up, or cheer us on. Obviously, not all faith communities are grace-filled faith communities. I want to encourage you to keep looking until you find one. But once you do, pour your hearts into these people and let them love you back.
Darcy and I have been married forty years now. And over those four decades, we’ve seen just about all you can see. Like so many couples on the front side of their journey, we were running on our own steam. Because of that, we ran out of steam quickly. We had to deal with short fuses and long grudges. It took a while for us to surrender our hearts to these commonsense priorities of a heart connection to Jesus.
It’s like our discussion about our marital marathons. A decision to run a marathon is one thing, but the decision to finish one requires a daily commitment to maintain the disciplines and denials necessary to prepare for the challenge before us and to keep padding forward through its monumental demands. This is all I’m talking about here. I’m not saying that reading your Bible, praying, and going to church are going to give you a grace-filled marriage. Everything hinges on your willingness to let God’s love for you flow through your heart to your spouse’s heart. However, I am saying that it’s hard to imagine any of us ever enjoying a grace-filled marriage without a regular connection to God through his Word, prayer, and his church.
When we started out, our premise was pretty basic—maybe the missing ingredient in our marriage isn’t love but grace. We agreed that there are wonderful passages of Scripture about marriage. But for these passages to be lived out, they assume the presence and power of God’s grace. We put forth a simple observation: God is dealing with his bride, the church, in a context of grace. What if we followed suit? Why don’t we treat our spouse the way God treats his?
We learned about three toxic lenses that are often chosen by one spouse to frame their attitude toward the other: the Me Lens, the Love If Lens, and the Pious Lens. We had to admit that rather than choosing which toxic lens to view our spouse through, it’s much more convenient to carry all three … just in case. But then we suggested a fourth lens—the Grace Lens—a perspective framed by the heart of God.
Then we learned how God’s grace looks, feels, and acts in the playrooms, workrooms, and bedrooms of our love. We offered a plan written out on a napkin that introduced us to a house built by God’s grace—a house with four floors. The ground floor helped us learn the power God’s grace has when we allow it to direct our words and actions to meet our spouse’s inner needs for a secure love, a significant purpose, and a strong hope.
On the second floor, we threw open the windows and let God’s fresh air of freedom waft through our love. We learned that grace-filled husbands and wives give each other the freedom to be different, vulnerable, candid, and to make mistakes.
The third floor of our grace house was the gym where we were encouraged to isolate six character muscles and work them well every day: the muscles of faith, integrity, poise, discipline, endurance, and courage.
As we climbed up to the top floor, the roof level allowed us to look over the horizon. We all have longings and leanings. It’s easy to let these hog the center stage of our life, but God has a better idea. It would have been easy to assume that the punch line of this book would be that if we want to have a grace-filled marriage, we need to put our spouse first. But to the contrary, we learned that would guarantee the downfall of our marriage. To enjoy a grace-filled marriage, we need to let Christ’s love for us be the driving force behind the love we give to our spouse. It’s what people committed to having truly great marriages do. That passionate love we have for God because of what he did for us on the cross shows up in our marriage as an unquenchable love and concern for our spouse. This grace is tempered by four truly great qualities: a humble heart, a grateful heart, a generous heart, and a servant’s heart.
If this were to become the default mode of our marriage, we couldn’t help but enjoy a deeper, richer, and more meaningful love as couples. This could mark the end of our story, but there’s more to all of this than simply what is in it for us. Sometimes, the bigger role of our grace-filled marriages is how they impact the marriages of our children.
When you’re whisking away to your honeymoon, the last thing on your mind is that time, many years down the road, when you’ll be standing outside a reception watching your own child drive off to her honeymoon. Because of that, it behooves us all to pay attention.
Darcy and I raised four children. Our oldest, Karis, was the first one to get married. “Karis,” as you may know, is the English spelling of the Greek word that is translated “grace.” Being named grace doesn’t guarantee her a grace-filled marriage, but we hoped that getting to watch God work through her badly-in-need-of-grace parents might have given her at least a bit of a head start. As the plans were made and the big day got closer, Karis pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to share a blessing over her during the ceremony. Of course I agreed.
But what to say? Based on the inspiration I got from a man I admire, John Piper, I decided to share my heart’s desire for my daughter in poetic form.3 I spent an evening in my study poring over words I thought might frame this bigger message of grace, as well as serve as a poetic send off for my daughter. The last two lines are not mine. They’re the closing line of one of John Piper’s poems to his daughter when she got married. But what leads up to those last two lines are this father’s attempt to speak a gracious blessing over his daughter. More than anything else, I wanted Karis to know that the success of her role as a wife was going to stand or fall not on how much she loved this man she was marrying but on how much she loved God. With this in mind, let me close this chapter with the poem I wrote for her.
A good man stands beside you and he longs to trust your heart.
He’s been loyal to his brother and a fine son from the start.
He’s everything you prayed for and he puts my fears at rest,
But somewhere past this moment, life will put you to a test.
You see, it almost seems too easy in this shrine to vows and rings,
To think that you will always want to love and do good things.
But I’ve learned life has imposters, who can slip in through the seams,
Of a love that gets distracted by the lure of earthly themes.
And so, please let these father words sink somewhere deep inside,
And pray they hold you vigilant should life toy with your pride.
For somewhere in the future, who knows just when or where,
These fickle friends will call your bluff, and test how much you care.
Suppose you find the gifts you’ve honed and polished through the years,
Become a source of marvel and looked up to by your peers.
Regardless of the headlines or the stars beside your name,
Please keep your arms around this man and love him more than fame.
And should your life be blessed with far more goods than you can count,
Like Midas with his golden touch, success’ silver fount.
You may be so inclined to put your heart in money’s health.
Don’t do it, my sweet daughter, love this man more than wealth.
You might just find that through the years your home becomes a place,
That turns each soul that visits you into a well-known face.
A home filled with contagious joy that causes hearts to blend,
In all that fun, don’t fail to love this man far more than friends.
And sometimes in the clutter and the hurry of the day,
The worst might get the best of you and make you want to say,
That you’re tired of all the pressures; you’re weary of love’s tests.
Just keep your hand clenched tight in his and love him more than rest.
And what if by divine design you’re called to some great cause,
Some noble goal or effort that can haunt with fear or pause,
And should it all require a peek into the throat of death,
Just hold this man with all you’ve got and love him more than breath.
Oh please, dear daughter, love this man, yet do not think this odd,
Be careful that no matter what, you love him less than God.
For in the shadow of the cross, in spite of second place,
He’ll know, he’ll see, his heart’s secure by the peace on your sweet face.
The greatest gift you give as wife is loving Christ above your life,
And so I bid you now to bless, go love him more and love him less.4