Desperation, Honesty, and Diligence

A Plea to the unmarried... and all those around them

When I look at a modern thinking about marriage (or, worse, not thinking about marriage) I think that three words are relevant: Desperation, Honesty, and Diligence. And I am not proposing these three things as separate things, different strokes for different folks. I am saying that everyone should approach this subject with these three things in mind.

Desperation: 

The issue of desperation has two parts. The first is your individual situation. You may be the best person on earth to marry… for all I know. You might be the prettiest woman on the planet, the most obviously fertile, the best trained, the most committed… fill in the blanks. If so, if there is no one else more marriageable on the planet, you can skip this part.

If, on the other hand, you fall short in one or two little respects from that qualification… then you need to be desperate… individually. Not bad desperate. Not falling apart desperate. But more like “I just fell off the boat and its a long way to shore I had better do this right’ desperate.

Then, even for Miss Perfect, there is the general situation. We live in a horrible, no good, really bad time for marriage. The processes of getting married, staying married, and life in marriage are all hitting if not rock bottom, at least sandy or muddy bottom. Things ain’t good. So you might be a good swimmer, but there’s still a long way to shore.

The kind of desperation I am talking about isn’t meant to change your feelings, but to change your thoughts and actions. Your plans and how you carry them out.

There might have been an epoch (I doubt it, but what do I know?) where everyone on the planet ended up getting married  and ended up in a good marriage without doing hardly any work at all (What?  You doubt it too? Well, good). But if there was any such time, this ain’t it. I heard a story about a guy who was dating a girl and she decided she was a guy. Now there’s a bummer for you, eh?

Marriage is the single most important human relationship. While it is possible to bear children out of wedlock, thus one can posit the human race continuing without the marriage relationship within which we usually propagate the race, no powerful society (or even any half way powerful society) has ever succeeded without something resembling ‘marriage’ as we envision it. (And much of our vision is wrong, so there’s that.)

We live in a society that is engendering perversion at every level. It is vital for Christians (and anyone sane) to fight against that. One of the most important ways to fight is to be an example. To teach our children about the importance of marriage, and to get them married. To get them married and having children, and raising those children to get married and have children.

It is not enough merely to want marriage, to desire marriage, and to think marriage would be a good thing for yourself… you need to be desperate for marriage for yourself and others.

Honesty: 

The next issue is that of ‘honesty’.  Now you might have thought that we covered that under ‘desperation’. But the honesty that we dealt with there was the honesty of the general situation, with a little flavouring of honesty about ones self. But in this section we are dealing with honesty about your future spouse…  your husband, or wife. And in order to think about this  you will have to cut through several acres of false teaching, false impressions, and stand up to continuous attacks. Because neither the world nor the church appreciates honesty in this area.

So what do you need to think about your future spouse? Well, you need to be honest, but in this case that will mean standing against the prevailing thought so…

Girls… you will not manage to marry a guy that is as perfect as you think you deserve. Your husband will be a disappointment… and this disappointment will be your fault. Not his fault, your fault. Not that he doesn’t have faults, but it will be your fault that those faults (and some non-faults and even strengths) will be… disappointing to you. Annoying to you. And even perhaps annoying to the extent that you will be tempted to break covenant and despise your given word.

Guys… your wife will not be who she is made out to be. Don’t get me wrong, women are wonderful, and vive la difference and all that… but she isn’t who she is presented. That pedestal she is on, its fake. She may not know it (and definitely doesn’t admit it to herself), her parents may not know it, her church may not know it, and you may not know it… or you may, but continually lie to yourselves!… but she is a sinful human being of the female persuasion, not a ‘princess’.

Both guys and girls, men and women, ladies and gentlemen have been sold lies, dammed lies (and statistics) about men and women, marriage, covenants, sex, faithfulness, communication, kindness, gentleness… lies from the pit of hell that, to coin a phrase, ‘cause the Word of God to be blasphemed’ and to turn some ‘aside unto Satan’.

This means two things. First of all, it really does mean that it is important to be honest with the one you are about to marry. NOT in order to not get married… in order to get married and do the marriage well. You will need to fess up to your faults, first to yourself and then to your spouse.

Secondly, it means that all of those posts you have been reading and posting are not only wrong, they are dead wrong. They are ‘kill your marriage before it starts wrong and destroy it after it starts’ wrong. They are deadly wrong. We need to take our daughters aside and tell them how to deal with the actual man they will marry, not the man of their imagination. We need to take our sons aside and convince them that while that young woman in church may look perfect… she ain’t. We need to go back to Scripture and see what it says about sin, and marriage, and sin in marriage, and the path to marriage, and sex in marriage… all of those things that go against the modern zeitgeist.

The danger is that people will say, “Oh, so you are saying we need to lower our standards.” No. I’m saying you need to adjust your grip on reality. The most perfect man in the universe would not behave as you want him to. ‘Cause he is a man. It literally isn’t his job to behave how you want him to.

And since you won’t be marrying the most perfect man in the universe (He is otherwise occupied) you need to realise that one of your jobs in marriage is to help turn the incredibly imperfect man you should be marrying (you probably should already have married) into a more and more Godly man every day. (And, no, not by nagging.)

And you, young man (or not so young man). You need to realise that when you get married  you are taking on a job, not going on a vacation. Indeed one of the most important jobs you will ever have will happen on your first vacation together.

Speaking of jobs…

Diligence.

If I had to put my finger on the greatest problem in the church marriage issue today (and I wouldn’t, I don’t have enough fingers) it would be the word ‘wait’. The problem is worse with young women, but it applies to everyone. The word ‘wait’, along with its companion words ‘hope’ and ‘trust’ are responsible for (perhaps) more failed marriages than anything else.

The word we should be using is ‘diligent’. As in ‘working diligently’. As in “I, my father, my mother, my siblings, my church, my pastor, and my great aunt in Montana are all… working diligently… to get me married.”

Consider this thought experiment. A  young man stands up in church and says, “I would like you to pray for me, I need a job.” What would happen? Well, first of all they would pray for him… to get a job. And do well in it. Secondly, after the service several men would come up to him with suggestions. Maybe one has some jobs where he works. Another knows someone. Another has a good suggestion where to look, or how to train.

Now let us consider a parallel experiment. A  young woman stands up and says, “I would like you to pray for me, I need a husband.” What would happen? Well, I can’t speak for your church, but in most churches there would be a gasp of shock. And the pastor might pray for the girl, but I doubt he would pray that she get a husband. And several women would come up… to tell her that she should be waiting on the Lord, trusting in him, (and, by implication, not standing up in church and embarrassing everyone with such an improper prayer request!)

The church takes it for granted that, in order for the young man to get a job, he will have to work at it; and they should work on his behalf. Everyone will start looking for a job for the young man.

But they take it for granted that they shouldn’t work for the young woman. That getting married is something that ‘just happens’.

Conclusion

Let us remember that these three things all are, in the end, one thing. I propose that if we are appropriately desperate, and accurately honest, then that will lead us to be extraordinarily diligent in effecting marriages for ourselves and our loved ones. And even those ones we don’t love particularly much but know we should (which is based on a false definition of love and should be the subject of another post). If we realise how important marriage is, we will see how necessary it is for us to not just sit and ‘wait’ (and ‘hope’ and ‘trust’) but to actively and diligently work on their marriages.