Marital Drift
Living in the suburbs, even the most Christian suburbs, we are witness and sometimes even subject to the dominant paradigm of the day in a way that farm and rural communities are not. Even city dwellers have less contact with neighbors and find it easier to hold to their own value systems.
In “The Silence of the Lambs” Hannibal Lecter tells Clarise “We learn to covet what we see every day”. I don’t think this is an epiphany; the great hidden truth in that statement is that it is true unless we actively guard, tend and live out our own values, morals and ethical standards.
In the book “Escape from Evil” Ernest Becker discusses ritual as a practical technique; a way of grasping and dealing with our world just as primitive men and women did. However, instead of imagining we can manipulate our world through symbols drawn on the ground, animal sacrifices or scarification, we have constructed “immortality symbols” – things that confer glory on us like low body fat, large breasts, big house, great career, etc. But marriage is not an immortality symbol.
Why? Because there is no concrete reward. What you get from a good marriage is invisible - a sense of connectedness, and all those fruits of the spirit Paul wrote of in Galatians: love, peace, joy patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.
That’s why the pursuit of marriage must be intentional – that’s why we are here tonite. Because if you don’t do it purposefully, you will default to the values of our culture and your marriage will be set adrift because ultimately, it is a selfish pursuit that does not reward teamwork; it’s like survivor, but for a loooooong time and for keeps.
How do you avoid that “drift”? In practice there are fairly simple things you can do; schedule your time together so the calendar does not rule your life, turn off the TV, learn to listen and use countless other communication skills to connect that we will talk about in the coming weeks.
Usually pain is the wake-up call that this drift is taking place. You may realize it when you go off on your spouse for some minor or perceived infraction; you may begin to notice a sense of disconnectedness in your daily interactions, or even a sense of discontent. But more than anything else, PASSIVITY is the enemy of your marriage.
Passivity is a double edged sword. Not only does it allow society and popular culture begin to sow its values in the place of your own priorities, but it also says to your spouse “this marriage isn’t important” and what’s worse, it says “YOU aren’t important”.
So, how do you avoid this? By making room for God in your life; by developing the spiritual discipline to listen to God. Scheduling time together, time to talk, have fun, even have sex is great, but the spiritual discipline is the hard part, because it creates no immortality symbols for you; there are no concrete results.
Zig Zeiglar says” You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”. Now that is just bunk and it pains me to say this, but The Rolling Stones are closer to the truth: “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find – you get what you need”.
The most difficult thing in a marriage is to serve the other person when your own needs aren’t being met. This is the very essence of biblical marriage and it highlights the biggest problem in the entire human condition, especially in the Christian life, which is an overblown sense of SELF.
That’s why marriage is the perfect environment for spiritual development. It is in this condition we best see our own selfishness. It is where the cross finds us. It’s the way marriage works and it’s the way marriage doesn’t work.
God designed marriage as an emotional, physical AND spiritual union. It stands to reason that he intended us to grow in each of these areas through marriage. The physical union begets children, the emotional union, joy and fulfillment; shouldn’t we expect a deeper relationship with Christ through our marriage as well?
