I find it one of the great mysteries of the modern church. It does not exist in every context and every congregation, but as I’ve traveled and inquired, I’ve become convinced it exists in a great many of them. Here is the mystery: A lot of churches have many single men and many single women who wish to be married, but are not marrying one another. There are lots of single Christians but not a lot of weddings.

Greg Morse recently wrote an article for Desiring God titled Go Get Her: To Men Delaying Marriage which spurred me to think and write about this subject. Morse’s article is an urgent call to young men to stop delaying and instead begin pursuing a wife. But as much as I generally appreciate what Morse says, there is another side to the issue that I consider equally important: From what I have observed, young women may not be a whole lot more eager to marry than young men—at least, to marry the young men who are available to them. Hence, both young men and young women in our churches apparently want to be married, but in many cases, they don’t seem to want to be married to one another. If you speak to the men they are likely to place responsibility on the women (“They won’t accept our advances”) while the women are likely to place responsibility on the men (“Suitable men won’t ask us out”). So even if the young men do heed Morse’s call, I’m not convinced it will ultimately prove effective.

I have tried to understand this phenomenon, so have spoken to young adults, pastors, and parents about an impasse that, if not universal, does seem to be common. I have learned there are a few possible factors in play. In the first draft of this article, I wrote about each of these at length, but then decided it may better to cover them just briefly.

Before I do so, let me acknowledge that, as has always been the case, there are some people who simply have not been able to find a suitable spouse despite their desires and their efforts—people who have experienced the hard providence that God, in his wisdom, has not provided what they long for. Not all singleness is related to what I am about to list.

With that in mind, here are some potential factors that may make marriage especially challenging today.

• The ubiquity of pornography has made men and women fear one another and fear the possibility of either marrying a porn addict or having to deal with a recovering one.
• Many women, especially in urban settings, have attained greater educational or vocational success than the men around them and it is a general rule (though certainly not a universal one) that when this happens men can consider women above them and women can consider men beneath them.
• Many women are well-established in the workforce and do not need a husband to provide for them in ways that may have been true in years past.
• Christians can fall into the “soulmate myth” that there is just one person out there for them to marry and that a marriage can only be successful when they are certain they have found that one individual.
• Fertility technologies allow women to delay childbearing, and therefore delay marriage, into their thirties or even forties. While Christians may not advocate the use of such technologies, the ethos of delaying marriage and family has seeped deeply into society and from there into the church.
• Christians have heard messages about marriage being difficult and they may not see how the potential benefits and pleasures of marriage outweigh the drawbacks and difficulties.
• Churches can make dating weird by attaching too much weight to the earliest stages of a relationship, thus causing people to shy away from relationships at all instead of risking a breakup that will become a source of gossip.

I’m sure there are many other factors, but these are ones I have both heard and observed.

Teaching

I have kept what I consider the most significant factor for the end because I believe it merits the greatest consideration. And often you find that the simplest explanation is the most likely.

I believe the church has not done a great job of teaching whether marriage is to be desired more than singleness or singleness is to be desired more than marriage. Or to say it another way, the church has not faithfully taught whether men and women generally should marry or whether they should prefer to remain single. Note the word should, which implies some level of moral obligation before the Lord.

In previous generations it may have been taken for granted that men and women would naturally pair up and marry off and, indeed, circumstances made marriage a near-necessity. Churches did not need to teach whether people should marry or should stay single because they generally married out of need. But not so today.

Aside from all that I’ve listed above there is this: As people grow up immersed in modern Western culture—as they learn in its schools, swipe through its socials, and watch its media—they gain cultural assumptions and expectations, many of which counter what Christians have long taken for granted. An older generation considers marriage normal and singleness odd; a new generation considers singleness normal and marriage odd. That may be a slight overstatement of the issue, but probably only slight.

Thus churches need to teach. They need to teach whether God generally wants his people to get married, if he generally wants his people to remain single, or if he has no opinion on the matter. They need to teach whether it is still generally true that “it is not good for the man to be alone” and that mankind is to “be fruitful and multiply.” They need to teach whether in this New Testament era God now prefers for his people to remain single. They need to teach so people can know!

I am convinced that few young Christians today could confidently answer questions like these:

• Does God still mean for humanity to be fruitful and multiply?
• Is it God’s general will for most people most of the time that they pursue marriage?
• Is singleness superior to marriage? Is marriage superior to singleness?
• Is a life of chosen and deliberate singleness—not the kind that involves being utterly sold out to a life of mission and service, but the kind that involves living a more standard workaday Western life—pleasing to God to the same degree as being married?
• Is marriage a kind of consolation plan for those who are emotionally unable to handle being single or sexually unable to handle being chaste?
• And perhaps even a question as simple as this: What is marriage and why does it matter?

I don’t mean to tip my cards toward the answers I might offer, but simply to state that these are foundational questions for which I think few young believers today could confidently provide compelling, biblical answers.

Conclusion

I believe it would be fitting and helpful for churches to lead the way in teaching and preaching on these matters. This would then help young Christians better understand God’s will regarding marriage and singleness and help them align their expectations with his. It would spur them to confidently pursue marriage or singleness to God’s glory. And maybe in one way or another, it would bring clarity to the mystery that has perplexed both me and others.

God’s purpose in marriage is not to make us happy but to make us holy. Or so we have all been told. The truth is more complicated, of course, and I’m quite certain God means for marriage to cover both. The old Anglican liturgy says marriage “was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.” I like that—fellowship, help, and comfort. Those words seem to cover it all.

When we think of the ways that marriage can make us holy, we probably imagine scenarios that are peaceful and proactive. We imagine sitting side by side to study God’s Word together or gathering our family around the dinner table to read, pray, and sing. Perhaps we imagine our spouse bringing a gentle word of rebuke to address a sin we haven’t yet spotted or, if spotted, haven’t yet acknowledged and dealt with. And hopefully, all of these are part of a Christian marriage! Yet what we probably don’t imagine is the more difficult ways that marriage will provide the opportunities to become holy.

Husband, you will have the opportunity to grow in holiness as your wife behaves immaturely, as she responds with outrage instead of grace or with anger instead of patience. You will witness her act unfairly toward you and ungraciously toward your children. She may go through stretches of time when she grows complacent about sanctification and decides to let sin just run its course in parts of her life. And all the while you will need to determine how you will respond, how you will continue to bear with her flaws, how you will meet sin with love. You will need to determine what it looks like in these moments to love your wife like Christ loves his church.

Wife, you will have the opportunity to grow in holiness as your husband criticizes you unjustly or pesters you to embrace a standard that is his but not God’s. He will at times lead you poorly and at times lead your family selfishly. He will sometimes want to be intimate with you in moments when it is unfair to even ask and then sulk when you decline. He will sometimes ask you to submit when submission is inadvisable or unfair. He will go through stretches when he is bad-tempered and thoughtless and abrasive. And you will need to consider how you will love him in these times, how you will continue to remain sweet when he is sour. You will need to determine what it looks like in these moments to love him without enabling him and to honor him without coddling his sin.

And besides your spouse’s sins, there are also your spouses’s weaknesses—areas that are not sinful but are still difficult and frustrating. You will grow in holiness by tolerating quirks and habits and by not allowing every frustration to boil to the surface. And then there are your spouse’s afflictions—illnesses, infirmities, and frailties. More sanctification may come by being a caregiver to your spouse than ever came by being a lover. Each of them represents a means through which you will be challenged to be holy or unholy, sanctified or unsanctified, to battle sin or foster evil.

I have observed that the couples who endure with joy are most often the couples who embrace one another as a complex bundle of strengths and weaknesses, helps and hurts, joys and sorrows, and who set their expectations for marriage accordingly. They are each more concerned with their own holiness than their spouse’s, each quicker to embrace an opportunity to overlook a sin than to confront one, each eager to forgive in the ways they’ve been forgiven by God. They are not dismayed when their spouse disappoints them or sins against them but are challenged to love all the more. They do not retaliate when sinned against but extend mercy, grace, and love.

Marriage does, indeed, give us many opportunities to peacefully and proactively grow in holiness. But being the kind of people we are, it also gives us opportunities to love despite being treated poorly, to care despite being treated unfairly, and to be devoted despite receiving little in return. And it is especially in moments and situations like these that God shapes us, molds us, and makes us more like him. It is especially in moments and situations like these that we put on the greatest of all attributes: the love of God.

For another take on this subject, see my previous article The Great Challenge of Every Marriage

Marriage brings us many joys. But since it exists in this world and not some other, it also brings its share of sorrows. It is like everything else in that way—there are times we marvel at its beauties and times we lament its difficulties. A divine gift that was meant to be only good is now attended with sore struggles and many griefs.

When Aileen and I were about to be married, we were told to ready ourselves to face those three most common sources of marital discord: money, sex, and in-laws. Yet as time has gone by and as our marriage has matured, I have learned there are foes far more insidious than these—foes that creep up on me in quiet moments and lurk around me on hard days, that are on my mind as I pray for my marriage and on my heart as I confess my shortcomings.

The greatest challenges to my marriage haven’t come from without but from within. The greatest discouragements haven’t stemmed from circumstances but from character. The greatest difficulties haven’t arisen from other people but from myself. I have learned that the greatest enemies of my marriage are the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. When I consider my marriage with honesty and with whatever humility I can muster up, I have to admit that it’s me.

Sure, our relationships with our parents have been challenging from time to time, but not nearly as challenging as the reality that I have grown so much less than I would have thought, would have hoped, and have even intended. Money has often brought opportunities to bicker and disagree, but not nearly as many as my own gracelessness and short-temperedness. And sex—well, every married couple can attest that for all its pleasure and significance, sex also causes many struggles. But aren’t most of those struggles less about satisfaction than about sanctification, less about the longings of our bodies and more about the demands of our idols? All these external challenges simply prod the internal enemies that are always so ready to be provoked.

I wasn’t hopelessly naive going into marriage and never believed it would only ever be easy. But what has taken me aback is that my greatest griefs would come from within, from my own lack of love, my own lack of gratitude, my own lack of sanctification.

It has surprised me that I wouldn’t marvel every day at the incredible honor it is that Aileen was willing to join her life to mine, willing to take on my name, willing to pass through this life with me at her side. It has surprised me that I would so often think so little of the gift that God entrusted to me in one of his precious daughters. It has surprised me that I would so often choose my own comfort ahead of her comfort, that I would so often follow the desires of my heart instead of ceding to the desires of hers. It has surprised me that I would so often contend against her instead of loving her, assume the worst instead of the best, and act in frustration rather than compassion. Neither money, nor sex, nor in-laws have brought near the trouble to my marriage than the enemies who have always been hidden in plain sight.

Yet I do not despair. I serve a God who forgives and am married to a woman who does the same. I follow a God who is patient with my shortcomings and I live with a woman who imitates him in that way. I am grateful that both he and she provide opportunity for me to grow, to become who I long to be. I rejoice when I see evidences of God’s sanctifying grace that is molding and shaping me.

And so my counsel to those who are young and considering marriage or those who are just entering into marriage is this: Your marriage will inevitably come under attack. It will face many concerted onslaughts. And while it is good to be aware of the enemies that will approach from outside, you would be remiss to ignore the enemies that already exist on the inside—the enemies that lurk with your own heart, your own mind, your own longings and desires. And I am quite certain the day will come when you will admit: the most vicious enemies of all have been me, myself, and I.

Surely few things in this world are more mysterious than sex. Surely few things give such clear evidence that there must be more to them than the sum of their parts. On one level, sex is a simple biological function that exists to populate the earth with human beings. On the other level, it is so much more than a biological function, for how else can we explain the longing for it and the pleasure of it, the shame of its misuse and the agony of its abuse? How else can we explain the righteous jealousy with which we guard it or humanity’s obsession with expressing it in anything other than the way God explicitly commands?

If you have ever had this sense that there must be more to sex than what you see or feel or experience, that there must be more to it than can be understood through pure biology, then I have a book for you to read: Scott Mehl’s Redeeming Sex in Marriage: How the Gospel Rescues Sex, Transforms Marriage, and Reveals the Glory of God.

I’ll admit that Christian books about sex can sometimes get weird. They can focus too heavily on diagrams or illustrations. They can focus too much on great sex or mind-blowing sex without establishing what sex is in the first place. Or they can go far beyond what God makes clear and get into territory that is not only uncomfortable but borderline blasphemous. But thankfully Redeeming Sex in Marriage is not like this. Rather, it attempts to answer big questions while remaining dignified and within Scriptural bounds. It is a book that is decidedly not weird.

Mehl begins with this question. “If your spouse, your friend, or even your child asked you, ‘Why did God create us as sexual beings?’ how would you answer? Where would you even start? Reproduction? Marital protection? Is it some kind of cosmic wedding present? Why did God create us like this?” His book provides an answer to the question, “because the way we answer this most fundamental question about sex will determine whether we’re able to find truly satisfying answers to the myriad of other questions that arise.”

He begins by providing a kind of theology of sex and focuses on five purposes we find in the Bible: sex is a means of covenantal union; sex is a means of mutual pleasure; sex is an expression of marital love; sex can bring new life; sex is a shadow of our relationship with Christ, as his church.” Each of these is part of God’s design but crucially, “there are differences in how each one functions. The first three purposes are what I call essential purposes. Purpose number four is the blessed purpose. And purpose number five is the transcendent purpose of sex.”

The first four are treated together in one chapter for, while essential, they are also familiar. It is the fifth purpose that fewer people understand. “With God, there are always deeper and eternal purposes at work. Everything he has created is imbued with profound meaning, symbolism, and purpose. Everything he does demonstrates his wisdom and declares his glory. He doesn’t just give gifts ‘for fun.’ There’s always more going on.”

We somehow know that there must be more to this aspect of our humanity. And it is here that Mehl ties the ultimate meaning of sex into the ultimate meaning of marriage—to serve as a picture of a greater reality. Tracking with John Piper, he says “God created Adam and Eve as sexual beings so that they might understand his love more completely. Their sexual desire for each other—the thrill they experienced as they beheld and explored each other’s bodies, the way their bodies were designed to restore the ‘one flesh’ union from which they were created—was all part of God’s plan to reveal the nature and the power of his love for us. In short, sex is about God.” Which makes sense, because ultimately everything God created is about God. Here’s the connection:

If marriage was designed to be a picture of Christ and the church, sex was designed to be one key aspect of that analogy. As we’ve discussed, God created sex to be a means of covenantal marital union, a means of mutual marital pleasure, and an expression of the multifaceted dynamics of marital love. If sex essentially manifests and expresses the marital relationship, then we must conclude that sex was also created to reflect Christ and the church. Sex reveals something powerful about the nature of our relationship with God, and in light of the New Testament, we are able to see it even more clearly than those who came before Jesus.

So in its own way, sex is a shadow of a greater truth and is meant to point beyond the act itself to the Creator of the act and beyond even the significance of the act to the transcendent truth behind it—the truth that we are loved by God and united to him through Christ. Marriage is a picture and sex is a picture within the picture.

With all of these building blocks in place, Mehl discusses sex in a fallen world and the many ways in which it is used to harm instead of to bless as well as the many ways in which it no longer functions as it was designed.

The second half of the book is more practical in nature and is shaped by 12 principles meant to guide you into a deeper understanding of sex, especially as you practice it with your spouse. Mehl says rightly that too many books on sex are essentially voyeuristic, inviting you to imitate another husband and wife. So rather than being exhibitionistic and crass, his principles remain dignified and appropriate. “You can’t grow in your sexual relationship with your spouse by studying the specifics of someone else’s sex life or the suggestions developed by experts. You can’t find the way forward by studying other people’s relationships. To find the way forward in your sexual relationship, you need to become a student of your spouse.” Indeed.

Redeeming Sex in Marriage is a book that really does answer many big and important questions and it does so well. I am thankful I read it and thankful that I can now recommend it as a resource for others to read, enjoy, and learn from.

There is something deep inside a man’s heart that longs to be heroic. I don’t know what little girls dream of, but I do know that little boys dream of carrying those girls out of a burning schoolhouse so they can be admired as strong and brave. Teenaged boys dream of fighting in a war not so much to blaze away at the enemy as to perform an act of heroism that will mark them as tough and noble and worthy of honor. Though older men may no longer be prone to such fantasies, they, too, are drawn to heroism and are convinced that they would be equal to the challenge, that they would stand where others fall, that they would run forward when others run back.

The reality, though, is that few men will ever commit the kind of acts they have so often pictured in their dreams. Few men will ever find themselves facing grave peril and impossible odds to emerge victorious and heroic. Few men will ever live the kind of lives that will even afford them the opportunity. Yet many men choose to sit idly by, wishing they would encounter the field of battle or the place of challenge so they could finally prove themselves.

To such men I have two things to say. First, I urge patience and second, I urge action.

Patience

First, I urge patience. If you wait and allow life to unfold, you will eventually come to an opportunity to prove your character. At some point, a great challenge, a great sorrow, or a grievous loss will come to you and you will need to decide how to respond.

I know many heroes who have never dashed into a burning building or tackled an armed man. One man’s heroism was shown when his child became terribly and mysteriously ill and he led his family prayerfully and faithfully as together they passed through their darkest valley. Do we not regard it as heroic to lead through the darkness when the enemy lurks on every side? This man led his most precious people through their most difficult hour. That’s heroism.

For another man, it was shown when his wife fell ill and he was more attentive to her than any doctor or any nurse. He fed her, he bathed her, he clothed her, he loved her. It was shown again when his wife finally succumbed to that illness and he had to take on all the roles she had left behind. Sometimes the truest hero is the one who learns to braid a little girl’s hair.

For still another man it was shown when he himself fell ill and he determined he would live out his final days as a trailblazer. He would set an example before his wife, children, and friends of how to live out the final days well, of how to approach death bravely and victoriously. And in so doing, he left behind an inspirational legacy that has caused them to honor him all the more. He is a hero to each one of them.

So first I urge you to be patient, for the time will come when you will be called to display heroism of that kind.

Action

Second, I urge you to take action now. I urge you to behave heroically in front of the people who most need you to help them and bless them. Rather than waiting and pining for an opportunity to display your heroism on a world stage, be willing and eager to display it on a small stage. Be heroic before your wife. Be heroic before your children. Be heroic before the few people God has called you to serve.

Your wife doesn’t care if you never have a medal to pin to your chest or a plaque to fix to your wall. But she does care deeply about how you live before her today. She cares deeply about whether you are living before her in a way that expresses love and care, whether you are leading her as a servant, whether you are growing in godliness and grace, and whether you are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ.

Your children don’t care if your name is never present in the headlines, but they do care whether you are present in their lives. It concerns them a great deal whether you are active or uninvolved, whether you treat them as a joy or a burden, a mere responsibility or a tremendous privilege. Any dad can be a hero to his children when he relates to them as God calls him to—with love and joy, with tenderness and servant-heartedness. Why care whether you are loved and lauded by others when you are loved and respected by them?

If you come to the end of your days and your wife says that you loved her well and that you led your little family with grace, you have the highest commendation you can receive on this side of the grave. If your children honor you as a faithful father, if they acknowledge that you blazed the way through the darkest of valleys, you have been as heroic as any man is called to be. There may be no crowds to cheer you, but I’m sure the hosts of heaven stand and applaud. There may be no medal for bravery, but I’m certain there will be reward in heaven. For you have been heroic in the most important field of life.

It is one of the most important habits that any married couple can form. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most rare. For a husband and wife to live well together before the Lord, they must pray together. For a couple to honor God in their marriage, they must be as intimate spiritually as they are physically. At times it can be difficult to know what to pray or how to pray. This prayer by George Swinnock is a wonderful model of a prayer a couple can (and perhaps should) pray together.

Lord, who are the guide of all relationships, may our marriage befit those married to the Lord Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah, may we be famous for faith; like Isaac and Rebecca, may we live in dearest love; like Zachariah and Elizabeth, may our walk be blameless.

May the meditation of each other’s frailty spur us to greater fidelity. May you be our guide, and Scripture our compass. Whatever stony paths we walk on earth, may we enjoy a comforting sunshine from heaven. And since you have tied this knot between us, may we do nothing which might loosen it through angry thoughts or quarrelsome deeds.

May our thoughts of each other be sweetened with love; may our words to each other be seasoned with love; and may our actions towards each other be given a relish and savour by love.

May love be the strength with which we bear one another’s burdens. May love be the mantle with which we cover one another’s infirmities. And may love be the fire which consumes opposition between us! May we cleave close to one another in our affections as those who are bound together by God himself.

As those who are equal sharers in gains and losses, may we stand and fall together, not wasting wealth through our extravagance but concerned for the needs of the other. Let us be more tender of each other’s reputation than of our own. And may we imitate your Majesty in covering and forgiving one another’s infirmities.

May we conspire for each other’s welfare, and carry domestic burdens on both our shoulders, joining together to bear personal hardships. As fellow-travellers through life, may we cheer up one another to make our journey more pleasant, until we come to rest in the true paradise!

We pray, above all, that with great faithfulness, we may serve each other’s souls, conspiring together to walk in step with the Spirit, praying, and fasting and reading together. Let us take sweet counsel together, that our house may be a Bethel, “a House of God”.

Enable us, Lord, as husband and wife to shine like the sun and moon, and our children as stars, so gloriously and powerfully with the light of holiness, that our house may be your lesser heaven.

George Swinnock as quoted in Into His Presence. I have slightly adapted and truncated it.

You probably keep score. I’m sure you don’t mean to. You may not even be conscious of it. But there’s a pretty good chance that you do it. You keep score in your marriage.

You keep score when you tally up the things you do for your spouse and when you tally up the things your spouse fails to do for you. You rarely keep a running total of your own failures or your spouse’s successes. Rather, you maintain records in such a way that you come out ahead. You probably keep the score in your marriage. And I’m sure it makes you unhappy.

Why does it make you unhappy? Because comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is the thief of joy because it causes you to focus on yourself. Comparison leads inward, to what you desire, to what you long for, to what you are certain you deserve. Yet the path to joy leads outward rather than inward. It leads toward others rather than toward self. There is more joy in loving than in being loved, more satisfaction in doing good to others than in having good done to you. The path to joy in marriage does not lead from your spouse but to your spouse.

Thus, one of the keys to a joyful marriage is to simply stop keeping score—to stop tallying up the good things you’ve done for your husband or wife and the good things he or she has neglected to do for you. Keep no ledger of wrongs and keep no ledger of rights.

That’s a good place to begin, but there’s more to it. Any time you address a sin, weakness, or failure in your life you need to not only put that vice to death but also bring to life the opposite virtue. What is the opposite of this kind of score-keeping? It’s to love freely and lavishly. It’s to love without keeping score, to love even when you feel unloved, to love even when you give much and seem to receive little. It’s to love in such a way that the only hint of competitiveness in your heart is when you ask, “Am I outdoing my spouse in showing honor?”

Of course, there may be times to consider together whether one person is doing all of the household chores while the other is doing none, whether one person is spending a lot of time with the children while the other person is spending little, whether one person is doing all the sexual initiation while the other is consistently being passive, whether one person is wondering if he or she is loved at all. There are times to sit and talk deliberately about desires, wants, concerns, disappointments, and all the rest.

But there is never a time to stop lavishing mercy, grace, and love upon the person God has given you as a husband or wife. There is never a time to withdraw or become resigned, to decide you will only love to the degree you are being loved. There is never a time to stop serving the one God has specially called you to serve.

To that end, why don’t you make it your habit to ask your husband or wife questions like these: How can I serve you today? How can I make your day better? How can I make your evening easier? In what ways can I be a blessing to you today? Is there anything I can get you? Is there anything I can do for you? How can I let you know today that I love you?

And perhaps even better, commit to consistently doing the things you know will serve your spouse, that will make your wife’s day better, that will make your husband’s evening easier. Serve, serve, and serve some more. Act in love even when you don’t feel loved, act with grace even if you don’t feel particularly gracious. Sow extravagant love to the love of your life, and reap the reward of joy. For the path to joy in marriage leads away from you and runs straight to your spouse.

Have you ever seen someone get married and you are absolutely certain that it’s not out of love for the other person? Maybe the woman wants access to her husband’s wealth or lifestyle and marriage is the way she can get it. Or maybe the man wants access to his wife’s fame or reputation and marriage is the way to get it. (Or, as often seems to be the case, access to her much younger body.) Either way, there is something grotesque about a marriage that is transactional, a marriage that is founded on getting instead of giving. It cheapens marriage when a spouse doesn’t really want the other person, but simply what the person can do for him or her.

You do not need to be a scholar of the New Testament to know that the Apostle Paul repeated a number of metaphors and illustrations in his explanations of the Christian life and faith. Among his favorites was the picture of a race. Paul understood the Christian to be a kind of athlete and the Christian life to be a kind of competition. It is not the kind of competition in which runners compete against one another to be the sole victor, but the kind in which individuals run together, helping and assisting one another, knowing that all those who cross the finish line are declared winners. These runners do not battle one another, but rather battle the world, the flesh, and the devil, all of which attempt to slow them, hinder them, or cause them to drop out altogether.

Key to this illustration are the goal and the prize. In Philippians 3 Paul explains how he continues to run this race despite serious obstacles. Knowing that he has not yet reached the goal—which is either death or the return of Jesus Christ—and that he can never relax his pace until he has crossed that finish line, he says “I press on toward the goal for the prize.” In a running race that prize is a trophy or medal—or in Paul’s day a wreath or crown. But Paul has something better in mind, something far more precious and motivating. It is something he has written about just a few verses earlier. In verse 8 he says, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him…” In Paul’s mind, the great prize is Jesus Christ!

There are many benefits that will be Paul’s when he reaches his goal and is with Christ. Of course he wants to be relieved of all the burdens of his mind, and the sorrows of his soul, and the pains of his body, and the sins of his heart. All of these factors burden and grieve him and being relieved of them is a wonderful benefit that will come with the end of life on this earth and the beginning of the life to come. Yet if Paul could be relieved of all that, but not have Christ, he would be inconsolable. The prize he longs for is not the benefits of Christ or the gifts of Christ; it’s Christ himself.

And this is where I find myself often needing to pause and think. Is my deepest longing for Christ? Can I honestly say that I long for him? Or do I actually long for the benefits that come with him? I want to have a body that is completely whole again, I want to see my loved ones again, I want to have a soul that will never sin again. Of course I do! But if I could have all this without Christ, would I take it? And as I ponder the glory of wholeness and sinlessness and wonderful reunions, do I ponder the even greater glory of meeting Christ, of knowing Christ, and of being with Christ?

I know I would cheapen my relationship with Aileen if I appreciated the benefits of marriage and the good things she does for me more than I appreciated her. And in the same way, I know I cheapen my relationship with Christ if I long for all the good and glorious benefits that come with being united to him even if I could do without him. And so I ask myself: What is it that I really long for? And I ask you: What is it you really long for? Both of us would do well to look to Paul as a mentor, Paul whose deepest and most ultimate longing was for Christ himself.

Every now and again I just can’t help myself—I respond to a clickbait headline and find myself reading an advice column. The question this time was from a woman who had become disillusioned with her husband and enamored with someone else. And as I read the columnist’s response I thought, “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly how Satan would counsel if he was asked.” That got me thinking…

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that marriage was invented by human beings, either for reasons related to humanity’s evolutionary origins or related to men’s need to control and dominate women. He would want people to believe that because marriage came from within this world rather, it in no way reflects any kind of divine design for human beings or human society. This makes it not only unnecessary but possibly harmful and oppressive.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that marriage offers no great benefits that cannot be had with singleness, cohabitation, or serial monogamy. He would want people to believe, to the contrary, that marriage offers risks and drawbacks that are mitigated or avoided altogether when people choose not to marry.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that marriage is primarily a matter of an individual’s personal lifestyle, that before marriage is about giving oneself to another person to love and to serve, marriage is about a sense of personal well-being and fulfillment.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe marriage is so risky that it is best to postpone it almost indefinitely, that it is so significant and perilous an undertaking that people should not even consider it until they have completed their education, begun a career, and become well established in life. He would especially want young people to anticipate it with a sense of dread instead of excitement.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that marriage is a union between any two—or three or four—willing partners regardless of any factor related to their sex or maybe even their family relationship. He would also want to be clear that marriage can be easily dissolved when it is no longer satisfying or desirable—“’til death or dissatisfaction do us part.”

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to miss the contradiction that while marriage is in some ways insignificant and easily dissolved, it is also so significant that a wedding should cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and that the institution is best dignified when a couple puts themselves heavily in debt to make sure every detail is perfect. He would want people to believe that the best measure of a successful wedding is that it wows the attendees, glorifies the couple, and looks great on Instagram.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that marriage is where sex goes to die rather than to thrive and that a lifetime of sex with one person can be nowhere near as satisfying as fleeting moments of sex with a long succession of people. He would want them to be suspicious that to enter marriage is to settle for sexual mediocrity rather than fulfillment. He would make sure this message is so endlessly repeated in popular culture that it becomes almost a given.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that children are a hindrance to a happy marriage rather than a blessing to it and that people are happiest when dedicating themselves entirely to themselves rather than to others. And if they still insisted on having children, he would want them to think of those children as a lifestyle choice, as a kind of prop to be used to enhance a parent’s sense of personal satisfaction.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want struggles or issues a couple encounters to be left festering and unresolved. “It’s fine and good to let the sun set on your anger.” He would most certainly not want the couple to reach out to others for counsel, prayer, or even rebuke.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want husbands to be passive in their leadership and wives to be so disappointed in that lack of leadership that they feel justified in failing to respect their husbands. He would want wives to determine that submission is a mark of weakness and that if it is given at all, it should be given only when it is earned. He would want husbands to treat their wives harshly instead of gently and to express constant disappointment rather than delight.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would encourage husbands and wives to each insist that problems can only be resolved when the other person makes the first move. He would ensure they each consider it impossible to continue to love and serve their spouse when he or she fails to reciprocate that love.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want people to believe that there is one soulmate out there for each of them and that after a number of years of marriage, they may learn, to their disappointment, that the person they married is not “the one.” He would want people to then believe that they will only truly be happy if they leave their spouse to pursue this soulmate.

If Satan took up marriage counseling, he would want even Christians to focus more on the struggles and difficulties of marriage than on its joys. He would want even Christians to talk often about how hard it is and seldom about how good it is. And he would most certainly want Christians to forget all about the reality that the deepest meaning of marriage is not first about a husband and wife but about Christ and his church.

There may not be times in your marriage when you stop loving your wife, but there may be times in your marriage when you stop liking her—or when you stop acting like it, anyway. There may be times when you are easily irritated with her or times when you just can’t get along. There may be times when you feel sorry for yourself and think you deserve better than the way she’s treating you. There may be times when a kind of despondency enters into the way you think of her and the way you behave toward her.

I’d like to offer a bit of counsel for such times: When you find you don’t like your wife, make it your aim to love your wife.

Your temptation in these difficult times will be to assume that your despondent feelings are the result of something she is failing to do—a way she is neglecting to love you, serve you, or honor you. That could be the case and she may well bear a portion of the responsibility. But what you may fail to consider is that your despondent feelings are actually the result of something you are failing to do. It’s always easier to look outside than in, to look to the other than to the self.

The thing about love is that it is more likely to grow cold when you fail to give it than when you fail to receive it. The one sure way to fall out of love with your wife is to stop loving her—to stop doing deeds of love and speaking words of love and otherwise displaying a heart of love. Love is like a muscle that atrophies with disuse and that strengthens with exercise.

So when you aren’t getting along with your wife, serve your wife. When you find you are irritated with your wife, find ways to bless your wife. When you don’t really care to be around your wife, surround your wife with love and good deeds. Make it your habit to ask her, “How can I make your day better today?” or “What can I do to serve you today?” or “How can I help you today?” Make it your goal to make her day better, to make her life easier, to make her load lighter. In short, love her like Christ loves the church and serve her like Christ serves the church.

“Okay, okay,” I hear you say. “that’s all well and good, but she…” Stop right there. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what she has done or failed to do. What matters is what you intend to do. She may not reciprocate and she may not make you feel any more loved, but that’s a whole different matter because you aren’t loving her to be loved in return—you’re loving her because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s what God tells you to do, because it makes God proud. You’re loving her before God because that’s how you’ve been loved by God.

So whether you feel loved or unloved, whether your heart is warm toward your wife or cold, whether you’re finding yourself drawn toward her or pulled away, love her, serve her, bless her. And you will find that as you serve her, your love will grow. As you act in love, you will feel more love. As you work for her good, your heart will become ever more inclined toward her. Because that’s how love works.

I am slowly (but steadily!) making my way through the collected sermons of De Witt Talmage. Though he is little-known and little-remembered today, he was considered one of the great preachers of his time. In one of his sermons I found this sweet tribute to his parents and the joy of a long marriage.

My mind is full of the memory of a couple who were united in holy marriage December 19th, 1803. Their Christian names were old-fashioned like themselves: David the one, Catharine the other. They lived to see their crystal wedding, their silver wedding, their golden wedding, and nine years beside. They lived to weep over the graves of three of their children. They lived to pass through many hardships and trials, but they kept the Christian faith, they lived for God, for each other, for their children, and for everybody but themselves.

Their hair grew white with age, and their steps became shorter and shorter, and their voice tremulous in the church psalm, though once they had led in the village choir. The one leaned heavily on a staff which I have in my house today, but heavier on the arm of God, who had always helped them. They were well mated. What was the joy of the one was the joy of the other, what was the sorrow of the one was the sorrow of the other.

At last they parted. My father, though a very tender-hearted man, I never saw cry but once, and that at my mother’s burial. You see they had lived together fifty-nine years. My mother said in her dying moments to my father, “Father, wouldn’t it be pleasant if we could both go together?” But three years soon passed, and they were reunited. Their children are gradually joining them, and will soon all be there; but the vision of that married life will linger in my memory forever.

Together in the village church where they stood up to take the vows of the Christian just before their marriage day. Together through all the vicissitudes of a long life. Together this morning in the quiet of the Somerville graveyard. Together in heaven.

Oh! there are many in the house this morning who can say with William Cowper:

My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise,
The son of parents passed into the skies.

Before I set fingers to keyboard, I asked my wife if I should write this article—one requested by Ligonier’s Tabletalk magazine. Before I so much as typed a single word, I asked her if I was at all qualified. She pondered this for a few moments and said, “Yes, I think you are.” I was grateful for her affirmation, yet we both had to acknowledge that many parts of the Christian life are easier to say than to do, easier to describe than to live out. And this one is no exception. It’s easy enough to plan and pledge and pray to live selflessly, but it’s difficult to actually do it moment by moment and day by day. That’s true even of living selflessly with the person in this world I love the most.

I have often pondered one of the strange paradoxes of the married life—that the person I love the most is the person I will sin against the most. Because of our proximity, because of our intimacy, because we have pledged to live our lives together “till death do us part,” I will have a lifetime of opportunities to love my wife but also to hurt her, to bless my wife but also to sin against her. Every day I will have the opportunity to live with her selflessly but also to battle the temptation to live with her selfishly.

God’s Word makes it clear that it is the responsibility of every husband to live with his wife in an understanding way—a way that shows her special honor (1 Peter 3:7). God makes it clear that while a husband is called to lead his wife, he is to lead in a way that is marked by love, not control, and that is shown in sacrifice, not dominance (Eph. 5:25–31). If a wife’s calling is to submit to her husband’s leadership and to show him honor, the husband’s calling is to lead in a way that makes it easy for her to follow and to love in a way that makes him worthy of her honor. It is to think more of her than of himself, to consider her good ahead of his own, to love her even at his own expense. It is, in short, to live selflessly.

To live selflessly is to live with an awareness of complementarity, to understand and embrace the differences between men and women. There is something deep within every man that tacitly believes that marriage would be easier and his union stronger if his wife were only more like him—if she thought like a man and reasoned like a man and felt the desires of a man. Yet God has chosen to display His glory in two genders that are wonderfully different and wondrously complementary. A husband who truly loves his wife is a husband who embraces the differences rather than battling them, who sees them as a feature of God’s design rather than a mistake. He listens to his wife attentively; he comforts her lovingly; he provides for her willingly. He understands and accepts that she is fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image every bit as much as he is, both in her similarities and in her differences.

To live selflessly, then, is to live compassionately. When writing to the Colossians, Paul says, “Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them” (Col. 3:19). Surely he would not have included that particular exhortation if it did not reflect a common temptation. And every husband must admit that he can so easily stoop to harshness, to treat his wife brusquely, sharply, or unseriously. Yet the husband who means to honor his wife will treat her with kindness and dignity, with care and compassion. He will be sobered that God has provided him with a wife at all, be honored that God has entrusted this particular wife to him, and be eager to extend to her all the love and affection that God has extended to him. He will be gentle and forbearing and will always be quick to repent, quick to seek forgiveness and to restore the relationship when he has sinned against her.

To live selflessly is also to live as a companion. It is to “enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun” (Eccl. 9:9). A godly husband enjoys the freedom and intimacy of the marriage relationship and relishes his wife as his dearest companion and closest friend. Though any marriage is at times difficult and though any relationship will at times demand effort and require work, he is committed to enjoying his wife and delighting in the unique joys and wonders of the marriage relationship. He embraces the unique strengths that come with his wife’s femininity, appreciates the unique insights she brings, and learns to enjoy what she finds pleasurable. As he sets aside his natural selfishness, he awakes to the wonders of the closest and dearest kind of human companionship.

Any good man would be willing to die for his wife—to take the bullet that would have struck her, to welcome the pain that would have afflicted her. But it is the rare man who is willing to live for his wife—to set aside the selfishness that is always so close at hand and to instead live for her good and her joy. But then no husband is behaving in a more Christlike manner than the one who considers his wife’s good ahead of his own, who puts to death his natural self-importance so that he can live truly selflessly with the wife whom God has given him.

It is no small feat to build a strong marriage. It is no easy thing to maintain a strong marriage through years of trials and temptations, through decades of sinning and being sinned against. It is not something any of us can take for granted and it is for this reason that there are so many resources available to help marriages start well and continue well.

New to store shelves is Bob Lepine’s Build a Stronger Marriage: The Path to Oneness, one of the inaugural books in a new series from New Growth Press titled “Ask the Christian Counselor.” (Other volumes include Anxious About Decisions; Angry with God; I Have a Psychiatric Diagnosis; and I Want To Escape.) The purpose of the book is to point couples to the most common “pressure points” in marriage and to address them from the Bible—to identify potential issues in a marriage and help a husband and wife solve them, thus strengthening their marriage.

The format is simple: The book is comprised of 17 brief chapters and each has a few pages of teaching followed by an assignment the couple is meant to complete together. Always a husband and wife are to consider their own issues or flaws ahead of the other person’s. After all, “the only person you can change is you. So instead of reading this book and hoping it will fix what is wrong with your mate, read it asking God to show you what needs to be addressed in your own life.” The chapters flow from the meaning and purpose of marriage, to examining past examples of marriage and events in life that may have contributed to marital difficulties, to matters related to conflict and forgiveness, to “best practices” that can strengthen and even restore a marriage. It’s a simple, effective format.

Though this book can be completed by a couple alone, many will benefit from involving someone else—perhaps a pastor or elder or perhaps another couple who has been married for a little longer and can serve as mentors. This is especially true of those whose marriages are in a serious state and who may need something more significant than a minor tune-up. (Do note that the book is titled Build a Stronger Marriage, not Save an Unraveling Marriage, so when the situation is dire, it would probably be best to pursue more formal counseling.)

Build a Stronger Marriage is an excellent little book and one I’m convinced will make a different in many marriages. I’d recommend pastors keep a few handy that they can give away to couples who are looking for just a little help. I’d recommend older couples keep a few handy and invite younger couples to join them in going through it together. And I’d recommend it to couples who may wish to join with a few others and strengthen their marriages together. In any case, it should serve its purpose well.

(Those who appreciate Lepine’s book may also want to look at his earlier work on marriage Love Like You Mean It: The Heart of a Marriage that Honors God.)

I am often asked how I read so many books. My pat answer is something like this: “The more you read, the easier it gets. When you’ve read 8 books on marriage, the 9th goes really quickly.” The point is that there is a kind of sameness to Christian publishing where books tend to focus on the same themes, exposit the same passages, quote the same authors, and in the end say roughly the same things. It’s awfully refreshing, then, when you encounter a book that is different and distinct. And that’s exactly the case with Chad and Emily Van Dixhoorn’s Gospel-Shaped Marriage: Grace for Sinners to Love Like Saints.

“This is a book for couples, but not just couples,” they say. “The institution of marriage is an integral part of the life of the Christian church. Time spent thinking about marriage will help some of us be more thoughtful about married life and all of us be more prayerful. For that reason, we appeal directly to married people throughout, but we also have in mind those who are only thinking about marriage or who want to support married people. There are no R-rated scenes. There are only helps for the married, prompts for those who want to pray, and encouragements for those who wish to defend and promote the institution of marriage, this gift from God that every church member ought to treasure, whether married or not.”

There are a few features of the book that the authors point out as distinguishing it from many others: its brevity (it’s just 160 pages), its focus on Christian spouses as being both sinners and saints (and therefore capable of great sin but also true holiness), and the way that, instead of drawing from contemporary books on marriage, it looks instead to the distant past (and especially to William Gouge’s classic Domestical Duties).

Gospel-Shaped Marriage begins with a brief explanation of what the Bible says about marriage—the basics that we can no longer take for granted in this age of confusion and deliberate deconstruction. They then set marriage in its redemptive-historical context, using Augustine of Hippo’s framework to show how marriage is different in its garden variety, in its fallen state, in its redeemed state, and in its future state. “The marriage of eternity is better than the marriage of time. In heaven, the all-fulfilling relationship will not be between man and woman, but between God in Christ and the church as his bride. It was not good for Adam to be without Eve in the garden, but it will be fine for him to be without her in the new heavens and the new earth. Marriage is eternal in its significance, not because it lasts for eternity, but because it can be used to equip us for eternity.”

The third chapter is an important one as it deals with grace in marriage and the tricky matter of mutual submission. They draw some fascinating insights from Gouge that “Ephesians 5 is not an improvement guide for spouses … On the contrary, we are told one another’s duties for the purpose of making their work a joy to them—just as Scripture puts it, in another context, for ministers and church members (Heb. 13:17).” There are very practical consequences to this: “Are husbands to love their wives (to pick one example of a duty)? Then wives are to make themselves as lovable as possible, for this is the principal way of helping a husband with his own duty to love her. Is a wife supposed to respect her husband? Then he needs to do his best to be worthy of respect in order to help her respect him.”

The subsequent chapters turn to the particular place of women in marriage, then to the particular place of men, focusing still on the New Testament’s key verses on marriage from Ephesians 5. A chapter titled “Winning in Marriage” looks at troubled marriages, “Family and Marriage” discusses leaving parents and adding children, while “Bedtime in Marriage” turns to intimacy and sexuality—topics that are covered with appropriate levels of detail and discretion. It wraps up with “Growing in Marriage,” which is about mutually growing in grace.

Gospel-Shaped Marriage is as good a book on marriage as any I’ve read and one I plan to recommend often and read alongside others. Though it could be a good option for pre-marriage reading, it would definitely be a perfect option for a mid-marriage refresher. If I was asked to offer an improvement, I might suggest that, while the word should is used frequently, it is not always clear how that word of moral obligation is linked to biblical commands. Yes, we can have confidence that “the first thing we should look for in a marriage is someone of the opposite sex,” but I’d say it is more difficult to demand that “Christian couples should ask how they can pray for each other in the morning.” While one of these is a biblical mandate, the other is merely a wise suggestion, and I always consider it helpful to distinguish between the two.

Over the past few years we have seen a sudden outburst of gospel-driven, gospel-focused, gospel-shaped, and other gospel-hyphenated books. Gospel-Shaped Marriage is among the best of them and, I suspect, among the few that will have some longevity—and that’s because marriage truly is shaped by the gospel since it exists to display the gospel. It combines sound biblical teaching with helpful real-life application and does so in a way that can help change, improve, and perhaps even transform any marriage.

Somewhere out there in the great, wide world, someone is praying for you. He probably doesn’t know you and you probably don’t know him. You may not meet one another for many more years. But he’s praying for you nonetheless and has been for a very long time.

He is the father of a daughter. He is the proud father of a daughter who is very precious to him—more precious than anything he owns, more precious than anything he has ever done, ever made, ever accomplished, more precious than his very life. She is so precious that if he gained all the riches of this world but lost her heart along the way, he’d consider himself an abject failure.

This father knows that a time is coming when a young man will approach him and ask for permission to marry his daughter. He knows that a time is coming when a young man will insist that it is in his daughter’s best interests if she leaves her father and mother—leaves behind the ones who brought her into this world and who gave her such privileges and who raised her so well—and is joined to him instead (for such is the endearing conceit of young men). And, though it may be hard for this father to admit, he knows that this young man may just be right—that his daughter’s best life will be outside of his care and in another man’s, outside of his home and in one this new couple will build together.

From the day he welcomed his precious little daughter into the world, he knew that he would at some point entrust her to another man. And so he began to pray. From the day he laid eyes on his beautiful little girl, he knew he would some day lead her down a church aisle to place her hand in another man’s. And so he began to pray for him. From the day his heart became so deeply bound to hers, he knew hers would someday become bound to someone else’s. And so he began to pray all the more earnestly.

He prayed that this young man would come to saving faith—that he would repent of his sin and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He prayed that this young man would grow in holiness—that he would conscientiously put sin to death and come alive to righteousness. He prayed that this young man would become a capable provider—that he would study hard and work diligently and make good on all the privileges afforded to him. He prayed that this young man would grow in godly character—becoming loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled. Ultimately he prayed that this young man would prove worthy of his daughter—that he would know her to be as precious as she actually is and that he would treat her with all the love and dignity she deserves.

This is an interesting thought, isn’t it? It is an interesting thought, and an encouraging one, that since you were tiny, this man has been praying for you. He has been praying for you without knowing who you are, praying for you without knowing when you would meet, praying for you with longing that in the day that you emerged from the great crowd of humanity, he would see that God had heard his prayers and answered them.

This is an encouraging thought but also a challenging one, for it now falls to you, young man, to be worthy—as worthy as any man can be—to receive from his hand what he counts more precious than jewels, more valuable than his own heart, of greater worth than his own name and even his own life. It falls to you, young man, to honor his diligence in so faithfully interceding for his daughter. It falls to you, young man, to be God’s answer to a father’s prayers.

We’ve all heard that marriage was designed to make us holy more than to make us happy. And though it’s a bit of a trite phrase that threatens to force a false dichotomy between holiness and happiness, there is a measure of truth to it. At its best, marriage does, indeed, help us grow in holiness. It helps us in our lifelong quest to put sin to death and come alive to righteousness. Aileen and I knew this was true when we got married all those years ago, but as time has passed we’ve been surprised to learn how it’s true.

It had been our assumption that marriage would make us holy because we would essentially be enlisting another person to our cause—a person who would assist us in identifying sin and in helping us put it to death. “This is the will of God: your sanctification,” says Paul, and each of us would be involving ourselves in embracing God’s will for the other.

Certainly there have been times when each of us has helpfully and even formally pointed out where the other has developed patterns of sin and selfishness. There have been times when we have each helped the other fight a particular sin or a general sinfulness. Yet as we look back on the past twenty-three years, we see that this has been relatively rare. It’s not that we don’t see plenty of sin in one another and not that we are firmly opposed to pointing it out. No, it’s more that there is another way that marriage has helped us grow in sanctification—a way in which our efforts are directed at addressing ourselves more than fixing each other.

Each of us has our sins, our imperfections, and our shortcomings. Each of us is pretty well established in who we are and how we behave and each of us is, at 45, pretty unlikely to experience dramatic transformations in this. That’s not to say that we have given up or declared ourselves as holy as we can ever be. Far from it! But at this point we are assuming that the sins that dog us today will probably continue to dog us to the end—though hopefully with diminishing strength. And this means that the sin we have each had to tolerate in the other is sin we will likely need to tolerate for however many more years the Lord gives us. So while Aileen may grow in holiness by having me confront her in her sins, she seems to grow more in holiness by patiently tolerating my sinfulness—by loving me despite my sin and loving me as the Lord helps me progressively put that sin to death.

Then, while each of us has our sins, each of us also has our quirks, our preferences, our idiosyncrasies, our annoyances. And just like we assume that the sins that have dogged each of us through the first twenty-three will dog us for the next twenty-three, we assume that the things that just plain annoy us about one another today are likely to persist as well. And let’s be honest—it is often harder to tolerate a bad habit than a bad sin. It is often harder to tolerate the way your spouse chews his food or leaves her clothes on the ground than the way he sins against you or the way she remains unsanctified. And again, while Aileen might grow in her sanctification by having me formally point out a way in which she is sinful, she seems to grow more in sanctification by learning to accept and perhaps even embrace some of those non-moral but oh-so-annoying things I do—those eccentricities and matters of preference.

So perhaps the foremost way that marriage has helped make us holy is not so much in calling each of us to serve as the other’s second conscience, a junior assistant to the Holy Spirit in bringing conviction of sin. It is not in calling each of us to be a kind of moral sandpaper to actively scour off each other’s rough edges. Rather, marriage has helped make us holy by calling each of us to extend a kind of divine mercy toward the other—to simply live lovingly with someone who is prone to be sinful and just plain hard to live with.

In marriage, God allows us to see one another as we really are, then to accept one another as we really are—as holistic human beings who are a mixture of holy and depraved, grownup and immature, wonderful and almost unbelievably annoying. Marriage makes us holy not just in compelling us to identify and confront sin in the other, but also in calling us to bear patiently with another person’s sin, preferences, and bad habits. In other words, marriage makes us holy in the way it calls us to be like God in overlooking offenses, in imparting mercy, in extending forgiveness, in displaying compassion, in refusing to be petty. Thus, the great sanctifying challenge of marriage is not so much to fix one another, as to imitate Christ.

He told me he knew that marriage was designed not to make him happy, but to make him holy. He had accepted the wisdom in the phrase, and there is certainly an element of truth behind it: Marriage really can serve as a significant means of sanctification in the life of the believer and it really can foster growth in holiness. But as useful and challenging as the phrase is, it failed to address the question that had been nagging his mind of late: What if marriage isn’t making me as holy as I had hoped? And what if marriage isn’t making her as holy as I had hoped? If marriage is designed to make us holy, why are we still so unholy?

I think there come times of reckoning in the life of every believer where we are forced to ask, Is this all? Is this as holy as I’m going to get? Will that temptation I’ve been fighting for decades never loosen its grip? Will that habit I’ve been trying to break never fully disappear? Will that discipline I’ve been trying to establish never become easy? While I may be holier than I once was, it’s still shocking and disappointing how unholy I remain.

And then there come other times of reckoning where we turn those questions toward our spouse. Is this as holy as she is going to get? Will that temptation he has been fighting never fully loosen its grip? Will that bad habit never disappear from her life? Will that discipline I so want him to put on never become established and easy? While our spouse may be holier than he or she once was, it’s still shocking how unholy a person can remain, even after many years of Christian living and Christian marriage.

As our lives mature and as our marriages continue on, we all eventually come to the realization that there are certain sinful behaviors in each of us that probably won’t ever be corrected. There are certain bad habits that probably won’t ever stop. There are certain selfish idiosyncrasies that grated the day we got married and will grate to the day “death does us part.” While there are certain strengths that will get stronger, there are certain weaknesses that will show little sign of improving and will perhaps even grow weaker.

And maybe in the face of these reality checks we need to remind ourselves that our pursuit of holiness on this earth, while genuine and meaningful, is only ever a limited pursuit. In life and marriage we become—and help our spouse become—not holy in a final sense, but holier—holier than we once were and holier than we might otherwise be. We enlist one another in our shared commitment to sanctification, knowing we will never complete the task. I love how Tim and Kathy Keller state it in The Meaning of Marriage. To fall in love with someone “is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating, and to say, ‘I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne.’”

Yes, we will grow actually and substantially in the journey, but no, we will not grow nearly as much as we wish or nearly as much as we ought. And what is true of us personally, is true of the person we married. That husband or wife will also grow actually and substantially, but at the end of it all he or she will still die simul justus et peccator—justified and sinning, saint and sinner. Our pursuits of holiness, whether our own or our spouse’s, are only ever incomplete pursuits. They are real and meaningful, but necessarily limited by the harsh reality that there is no perfection to be had on this side of the grave.

But this is no reason to despair because these pursuits are motivated by the wonderful reality that there is life beyond the grave. There is relationship beyond the grave. What we do in the here and now really matters. The Kellers capture the importance of that so well. They have said that in marriage we say to another person. “I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne.” Now read the rest of the thought: “And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!’ Each spouse should see the great thing that Jesus is doing in the life of their mate through the Word, the gospel. Each spouse then should give him- or herself to be a vehicle for that work and envision the day that you will stand together before God, seeing each other presented in spotless beauty and glory.”

As partners for life, bound together through our marriage vows, we are concerned not first or only for our happiness but for our holiness. Though that holiness will remain incomplete, it will be real and meaningful and bring glory to God.

If you could speak to 70 nearly-married or newly-married couples and give them some practical pointers on marriage, what would you say? That was the question I faced as I prepared for a recent event across town. My first assignment was to speak on the Christian family and then to describe some of the challenges couples may encounter in the first ten years and the ten years after that. Well and good. But then they wanted me to get practical and offer some short-form practical tips on relationship and intimacy. I came up with ten—five related to relating as a couple and five related to sexuality. I thought I’d share the relationship tips today in case they prove helpful to you.

The best gift you can give your spouse is your holiness. As Christians, we know it’s God’s will that we are sanctified—that we put sin to death and come alive to righteousness. We are accustomed to thinking of this as something we do for our own benefit and, of course, there is tremendous personal benefit in growing in holiness. But the second great commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself,” also calls you to prioritize holiness as something you do for the benefit of other people. With this commandment in mind, you will grow in holiness as an expression of love, care, and concern for others. On the other hand, by neglecting this command you will stay mired in sin as an expression of apathy, lack of care, or lack of concern for others. Now think about this: Your husband or wife is the person who is closest to you. No one is more harmed by your sin and no one is more blessed by your sanctification than your spouse. If you love your husband or wife, then give them the gift of holiness. Be holy for the benefit of that person you love the most.

For every one look at your spouse’s sin, take ten at your own. Living intimately with another person presents a special kind of challenge. When you’re dating and engaged, it can be easy to imagine a life of never-ending harmony and bliss. But by the end of the honeymoon, you’ve probably already learned that this other person is going to be difficult to live with. Not only does he or she have some annoying habits, but also some stubborn, significant sins. When problems arise, it’s rare that your first thought is, “Oh, that’s probably my fault.” It’s far more likely that you look to that other person and assume “it’s his fault” or “it’s her fault.” At the very least, you probably look to your spouse and think it’s primarily that person’s fault. If you’re not careful, you can begin to get a little obsessed with your spouse’s sin. Now, part of the joy of marriage is having someone else who is dedicated to your holiness, who is helping you put sin to death and come alive to righteousness. That’s true and good. But while you should be concerned for their holiness, your first concern should be for your own. Don’t confront one of their sins until you’ve confronted several of your own. If you can list ten of your spouse’s annoying sins but can’t list one of your own, you’d do well to dedicate some time and prayer to self-examination.

Invite your spouse to identify your sin. We’ve said that the greatest gift you can give your spouse is your holiness, and we’ve said that your great concern shouldn’t be their sin, but your own. It naturally follows, then, that you’d ask your spouse to help you identify your sin, to confront it, and to put it to death. After all, no one is going to see your sin or be harmed by your sin more than your spouse. Your spouse has a front-row seat to see every way in which you sin. So here’s what I recommend: Ask your spouse to speak into your life. Give them a wide-open door to tell you where they see sin. There are two ways to do this. First, give them free rein to do that whenever and wherever they think it’s wise or necessary. Second, it’s a good idea to formalize it every now and again and to make sure you give them a safe setting to identify your sin where you aren’t going to be a baby or a bully—you won’t sulk and you won’t lash out. Set aside a little time, tell them that you’d like to hear what they are seeing, then listen patiently and impassively, without showing anger or being defensive. Having done that, go away, think about it, pray about it, and don’t respond until a day later. Whether it’s in these ways or another, enlist your spouse as your ally in battling sin. (Note: Don’t ask for this kind of feedback in the manipulative hope that they’ll reciprocate and let you air your grievances in return.)

Don’t go to bed angry, but also don’t try to solve problems after 10 PM. Ephesians 4:26 says, “Don’t let the sun go down on your anger.” But the tricky thing is that some issues cannot be neatly resolved by bedtime. And, as married folk know, one of the most common problems in marriage tends to happen between the time you get into bed together and the time you actually fall asleep. (Yes, you know exactly what I mean!) The concern behind that verse is that failing to resolve disputes leads to bitterness, and bitterness leads to relational separation. So the call is to resolve conflicts quickly. Yet there are other realities in play, like the fact that the later the day gets, the more we tend to operate out of emotion more than reason. Some things seem way worse in the evening when we’re tired than in the morning when we’re fresh. So here’s what I recommend. Don’t try to solve big problems after 10 PM. If you haven’t worked it out by then, call a halt, kiss one another, pray with one another, say “I love you” and “we are going to be alright,” and then go to sleep. You may find that when you wake up, you’ll realize you were making a mountain out of a molehill. You may find that both of you are willing and eager to identify your own sin and apologize for it. But if not, you’ll at least be able to find a time and a place where you can better discuss it. You’ve got to learn the skill of temporarily putting aside disputes and going on with marriage until you can find an opportune time to really work things out.

Learn to bare your soul, not just your body. We know that marriage is a relationship of intimacy. And obviously that intimacy is both represented and consummated in the act of sexual intimacy. In marriage you learn to be naked and unashamed in front of another person. But it always amazes me how many couples will regularly bare their bodies but only rarely bare their souls to one another. This may be especially prominent among men. Many a man is always willing to jump into bed with his wife, but never willing to kneel beside the bed with his wife. But the truest intimacy is more than physical. Marriage’s truest “togetherness” is being knit together in soul, which is then represented by being knit together in body. So learn to be spiritually intimate. Learn to pray together, to read Scripture together, to worship together, to have deep spiritual conversation together. But mostly learn to pray together since prayer serves as a kind of bellwether of spiritual intimacy. Pray with one another and pray for one another. Husband, pray for your wife with your wife; wife, pray for your husband with your husband. Bodies will fail and sex will eventually decline, but this deeper spiritual union will carry on until death and beyond.

So there, out of the many things I could have said, are the few things I did say. I hope you find them helpful!

It was with sorrow but not surprise that I read a recent article at Risen Motherhood. In The Gospel Frees Us From Shame: Embracing Sexual Intimacy with a Postpartum Body, Lauren Washer writes about an experience that’s common among women who have given birth to one or more children. “I never thought my feelings toward sexual intimacy would change so drastically after having babies. Yet, with each pregnancy and every extra pound on my body, I have struggled to believe my husband desires me.”

She goes on to explain why she struggles to believe this.

Our culture tells us women should have flat stomachs and flawless skin. We feel the pressure to only gain so many pounds during pregnancy, and then shed them immediately after giving birth. When we see perfectly styled images of celebrities holding their day-old babies, it’s tempting to believe this is normal. So, when we come home from the hospital in our yoga pants and postpartum underwear, we start to feel like there must be something wrong. As the days and weeks go by, and the stretch-marks, squishy tummies, and baggy eyes remain, we can find ourselves feeling unworthy of physical affection and shying away from sexual intimacy with our husbands.

If this experience isn’t universal, I’m sure it’s at least very common. For that reason, I’m glad Washer addresses it, and that she addresses it in light of the gospel, which so aptly deals with shame. But I’d like to take a slightly different tack by speaking on behalf of husbands. Of course I cannot speak on behalf of every husband, but I hope to speak on behalf of some, and to offer a husband’s perspective on a wife’s postpartum body. (And, to that point, I sent this article to several male friends who generally agreed with what I said.)

I Understand Why

I understand why a wife can believe that her husband does not find her desirable, or at least as desirable as he once did, after she has carried children. It actually makes a good deal of sense. Whatever else a young bride learns about her husband in the early days of marriage, she certainly learns that he is extremely visual, and that he gains great joy and satisfaction from feasting his eyes upon her. A young husband naturally delights in his wife’s body and, like Solomon in his famous Song, enjoys telling her what he finds particularly delightful. When this couple is young and free and naked, he may comment on the flatness of her stomach or the shape of her breasts or the sweep of her curves or the perfection of any and every part of her. He may not use exactly the language of the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon (and, in fact, I don’t really recommend it), but certainly he has allowed his eyes to linger on every part of her, from head to toe, and to sing the praises of what he has seen.

But a few years and a few babies later, that body is not what it once was. The stomach is no longer as flat and toned as it used to be and it may now bear deep stretch marks or fierce scars from the surgeon’s knife. The breasts are no longer the shape they once were, the curves not quite so curvy. And the wife, being no fool, is prone to put two and two together: The very things that once attracted him are no longer as attractive. Therefore, he must no longer find me appealing. He must be disappointed. He might even be repelled. She feels shame and this shame can have consequences:

On the days when he compliments my appearance or hints at his desire for sexual intimacy, I inwardly roll my eyes, question the truth behind his words, and sometimes pull away. Yet, on the other hand, if he doesn’t pay special attention to me when I wear a new dress or he falls asleep before me at the end of the day, I interpret his behavior as disinterest and failure to pursue me. In both cases, I’m a captive to feelings of shame telling me the appearance of my body makes me no longer worthy of love, desire, or attention.

What Is a Wife To Believe?

So what is a wife to believe about the relationship of her husband to her postpartum body? She is to believe that his delight in her body and his desire for it is not diminished by what it has endured, but actually enhanced. He does not resent the imperfections but, rather, treasures them. Stick with me as I try to explain myself.

When a husband and wife marry, when the two become one, they begin a story together. That story is told through shared experiences, shared successes and failures, shared worship, shared moments, shared secrets. As it pertains to the postpartum body, that story is told through shared flesh and shared children. The wife’s body tells a significant part of that story, their story. A loving husband gazes at his wife’s body and sees reminders of their shared life—reminders that only her body has recorded.

That stretch mark across the belly tells a story of a pregnancy and calls them to remember the sweet moments of lying on the couch together, his head on her bare stomach, singing gently to the little life within. Will it be a boy? Will it be a girl? What name will we give this little one? That caesarean scar tells the story of sudden fear and urgent surgery and safe birth and great rejoicing. Those breasts, which may not be what they once were, tell the story of life, for what man hasn’t marveled as he has watched a baby suckle, drawing sustenance from his mother. Those stories are so very good, and they cannot be told apart from the postpartum body.

In this way there is a tenderness in the way a mature husband regards his wife’s body, in the way he gazes upon her nakedness. When he was young, he passionately made love to a near stranger, and though in that day he was enamored with her body, he barely knew it because he barely knew her. But now he tenderly makes love to an intimate companion and a dearest friend with a body that is so familiar. Its lines are their lines, its scars are their scars, his as much as hers. Somewhere in the march of time, the beauty of a young body gave way to the much greater beauty of a shared life, a shared soul. The things that once attracted him may have faded or stretched or become marred, but they’ve given way to something better, something deeper. He knows that stomach, he knows those breasts, he knows her every part.

That postpartum body is the hidden, intimate story of their shared life. Its secrets are for them alone. Its skin is the pages and its scars the words of the stories that only they know. Yes, the body has been blemished as the stories have unfolded, but no, he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. As he gently runs his finger along the lines and scars, he knows that she willingly sacrificed her youthful body for this one, so they could enjoy the blessings of children together. He honors her for that sacrifice. He treasures her body for that sacrifice.

So how does a husband regard his wife’s postpartum body? With awe, that he has been given willing access to that body so many times—to look, to touch, to enjoy. With tenderness, knowing that it tells the story of so much of the journey they’ve made together. With gratitude, acknowledging that she has sacrificed her body so they could enjoy the thrill of pregnancy, the joy of children, and the blessings of family. And with desire, still longing to experience and increase the intimacy that has bound them together for all these years. He treasures each mark and each line as if they are his own. For in the sacred oneness of marriage, they are his own.

Living in a multicultural city and serving in a multicultural church has given me a wide view of some of the ways different generations of a family can relate to one another. As a young generation begins to pair up and to marry, forming new families, they need to learn to relate to the generation or generations that came before. This can take many different forms and I’ve long observed that the most significant determining factor is usually culture. We tend to conform to cultural expectations.

The God who created family is clear that marriage creates a new family unit, but also clear that biology matters and that the forming of a new unit does not entirely rupture the old one. God says “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife,” but there are many different perspectives on what it looks like to leave parents and what it looks like to cleave to a spouse. Some cultures treat marriage as if it marks a total break with birth families, while others act as if marriage really makes no substantial difference at all. When cultures mix, we begin to see that much of what we’ve always regarded as normal may not be, that what we’ve always seen as good may actually be bad.

As I was pondering this and attempting to better understand God’s view of the matter, I looked outside to our little garden which Aileen tends so carefully and cultivates so well. I looked at the hostas with their many shapes of leaves in varied shades of green. I looked at the ferns towering above them, still lush and healthy before they inevitably fade under the coming heat of the summer sun. I looked at the bright red and yellow begonias, brilliant splashes of color contrasting beautifully with the dark soil beneath. Then my eyes fixed on the irises which opened for the first time today to display their magnificent purple flowers. And I thought, “I someday want my children to leave and cleave like a strawberry.” I’d better explain.

My generation of long-time Canadians, those of us who were raised by a fully Westernized baby boom generation, have largely inherited a view of forming new families that is kind of like a wildflower. Many wildflowers produce seeds that are blown by the wind, land somewhere near or far, put down roots, and grow up into a new plant that’s entirely independent of the old one. The boomer generation was fiercely independent and held to the “Freedom 55” mindset of getting work and child-raising out of the way early, before enjoying a long and leisurely retirement. Their children were raised to become independent early and to expect (and offer) little support later in life.

Many of the newer Canadians, those arriving from non-Western countries over the past couple of decades, see forming a new family as being kind of like irises. Irises propagate by division, so the parent plant divides and forms new rhizomes that are attached to the old. Since they are attached at the root, the new flowers and the old flowers grow up side-by-side. In fact, a gardener must eventually split the rhizomes and spread them out to keep the plants healthy.

There are positives and negatives to both wildflower and iris families. Wildflower families appropriately emphasize the independence of a new husband and wife, but tend to make the break between generations too abrupt and too significant. They leave father and mother but fail to honor father and mother. Iris families emphasize relational closeness and mutually-supporting generations, but may also be suffocating and not allow new families an appropriate level of independence. They honor father and mother but fail to honor husband and wife. Wildflowers seem prone to over-emphasize the new relationship while placing too little emphasis on the old; iris families seem prone to over-emphasize the old family while placing too little emphasis on the new.

And this is where strawberries come in. Strawberries spread by putting down runners. They send out a shoot that extends for a little distance, then puts down roots, and grows up into its own plant. It remains connected to the parent, but is still its own plant and can still produce its own fruit.

And as I think of the families I’ve known where the generations function best, they function more like strawberries than irises or wildflowers. This is true whether they share a household or live in different countries, whether they are entirely financially independent or support one another. The issue is one of expectations and obligations, of parents setting their children free and children reciprocating their great debt of care. They appropriately emphasize the discontinuity between the old family and the new, but appropriately emphasize the obligation each generation owes the other. They are independent, but not too distant. They are connected, but not suffocating. They’ve got room to grow but also room to spread their leaves.