Gary Thomas is one of my favorite people on earth. Not only has he written some of the best books and material on marriage—including the best-seller Sacred Marriage, but he’s been such a kind and helpful mentor to me and my wife throughout the last year.
I recently asked Gary if he would share a bit about his recently published book, “A Lifelong Love: What If Marriage Is About More Than Just Staying Together?” In typical fashion, his following guest post touches a common issue and offers a beautiful solution. Hope it helps!
Enter Gary.
One of the things that brings so many marriages down is never mentioned in questionnaires. Social scientists talk about money problems, in-law problems, sexual problems, but as a pastor, I see a dilemma and challenge that is far more common and that brings down far more marriages.
It’s the problem of boredom.
We get bored with each other.
In one sense, this is the natural human condition. None of us are so fascinating that we can keep somebody enthralled for five or six decades. Two or three years? Yeah, that’s possible. Five or six years? Well, if you have the humor of a Larry David or Tina Fey, you’ve got an outside shot. Fifty or sixty years? When your spouse knows your stuff, has seen your stuff, and really doesn’t think there’s anything new to explore?
That’s a problem.
And it might explain why, in the last decade or so, empty nesters are increasingly making it a habit of dropping their last kid off at college and then stopping off at the lawyer on the way home to call it quits.
The sad reality is, they’re just really, really bored with each other.
Hollywood stars get bored with Hollywood starlets. Billionaire women get bored with billionaire men. And ordinary husbands get bored with ordinary wives.
Unless, that is, we find something else to build our affection on. That’s what God provides in a marriage based on Him and why I talk about “worshipping our way to a happier marriage.”
This isn’t some Pollyannaish religious escapism—it’s very practical, so hang with me.
In the first sermon he ever preached, the famous Puritan Jonathan Edwards dropped this brilliant passage when speaking about heaven (that has a very valuable lesson about life on earth):
“The glorious excellencies and beauty of God will be what will forever entertain the minds of the saints, and the love of God will be their everlasting feast. The redeemed will indeed enjoy other things; they will enjoy the angels, and will enjoy one another; but that which they shall enjoy in the angels, or each other, or in anything else whatsoever, that will yield them delight and happiness, will be what shall be seen of God in them.”
That last sentence is key: “That which they shall enjoy,..in anything whatsoever…will be what shall be seen of God in them.”
As God captures our hearts, we fall more and more in love with Him. His love is our “feast.” He becomes all our desire, all our hope, our very life and breath. There is a point in a mature believer’s life when it would be impossible to truly enjoy and revel in something that is in rebellion to God. The ancient classics talk about this all the1 time—the stages of soul formation in which we obey out of fear, and then out of love, and then, because God has so captured our hearts, we obey because we truly only desire the good (that is, God). It’s not that temptation can’t seize such a soul—it surely does—but even if we fall, we hate what we’re doing when we’re doing it, and we’re appalled by what we’ve done after it’s over.
Which means that a marriage with a shared love and worship of Christ is a marriage that grows ever deeper over time; as God shapes our hearts to desire Him, He is also, in that work, shaping our hearts to desire and enjoy each other.1 The more I love my wife out of worship, then the more God brings my heart into an ever-worshipful state (which He is doing steadily, and continuously), the more I will love my wife. I take delight in the eternal will of God, because God is giving me the heart to do so, and His eternal will is that I love my wife as Christ loves the church, so I start to relish the thought and practice of loving my wife that way, because what I love in my marriage, what I love in my wife, is the presence of God in my marriage and the presence of God in my wife. And since I want more of God, I want more of my wife.
What this means is that long-term marital satisfaction between two less than fascinating people is best built on the common worship of a fully enthralling God.
So, the problem behind much marital discontent is often a problem of worship.
The less I worship, the less I experientially receive from God—His acceptance, His love, His kindness—and the more I ask of my wife to pick up the slack (“notice me, appreciate me, thank me…”). The more I worship God, the more I focus on passing on that love. When you hear really good news, you can’t wait to pass it on. When you are deeply and truly loved, you can’t wait to express that love and share that love with someone else. If your worship doesn’t make you want to encourage someone, notice someone, love someone, or occasionally even hug someone, you’re not worshipping God.2
So, the more we worship, the more we will cherish our spouse, and the more we will cherish our marriage. And if the worship is true, we will never—not even in a million years—grow weary of Him, which means, we won’t grow weary of our spouse or our marriage.
The problem of boredom in marriage thus has a simple solution: worship. “Oh magnify the Lord with me; let us exalt His name together.” (Psalm 34:3)
Recapture the worship and you’ll recapture the love. Your delight with each other won’t just survive, it will flourish.
That’s how we enjoy someone not just for five or ten years, or even fifty or sixty years, but literally for eternity.
If this hits home, be sure to pick up a copy of Gary’s new book, A Lifelong Love: What If Marriage Is About More Than Just Staying Together?
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