Wednesday, July 11, 2012

A Marriage Worth Fighting For

On the radio this morning they were talking about the current divorce rates in the U.S. The divorce percentage for first marriages is over fifty percent. More then half of marriages end in divorce and the rates are even higher for second and third marriages.


So what has happened to make marriages so disposable? Why are people so quick to bail out once things get tough? Does a vow not mean anything any more? Or did they just change them so instead of "Until death do us part" it's more like "Until I get bored" or "Until I am tired of trying"?


When me and Rebekah got married we made a vow to God and to each other and that vow wasn't taken lightly. We are going to be together until one of us dies. We both agreed before we ever got married that divorce was not an option. We wrote our own vows and we put a lot of thought into them.


This is what we wrote:
I, Ben, take you Rebekah, to be my wife.I promise to care for you and to protect you.I will be faithful to you and honest with you.I will be your partner and your best friend.I will help you raise our children and point them toward God. I will savor our time together.I will be understanding and supportive through laughter and through tears.I will hold you tight through good times and bad times.I will forgive you as we have been forgiven.I will never leave you.I promise to love and cherish you today, tomorrow and forever.


I, Rebekah, take you Ben, to be my husband.I promise to respect you and trust you.I will be faithful to you and honest with you.I will be your partner and your best friend.I will help you achieve your goals and dreams.Wherever you go, I will go. I will encourage you and support you through laughter and through tears.I will stand by your side through good and bad times.I will forgive you as we have been forgiven. I will never leave you.I promise to love you today, tomorrow and forever.

We meant every word.

As men we need to take a stand! We need to fight for our marriages and for our families! We have to stop sitting on our butts until things are so bad we don't even know how to start fixing them. Marriages don't just fall apart overnight. Little things creep in and start to build up over time. There may be a final breaking point and it might catch us off guard but if we look back the evidence is there.

My parents are divorced. They were both raised in christian homes and they were both christians. One day my mom said she was moving out and my dad never saw it coming. I have to give my dad credit because he truly started fighting for his marriage. He never wanted to be divorced. They had been meeting with their pastor and working on things before it happened. I don't know everything that brought their marriage to that point and maybe there was just to much stuff built up. My parents did a great job raising us, and me and my brothers and sisters all turned out great but along the way their marriage suffered.

I am not going to let anything sneak up on me. I am very proactive about making sure there is nothing coming between me and Rebekah. I can tell when she is upset and I make sure we sit down and talk it out. Some times she tells me I just need to let her be mad for a while but I hate for there to be anything wrong between us even for a second. I am fighting for my marriage before it can even start to slip away.

But why is marriage so important?
It is an example of Jesus' relationship with us; His church and His bride. It's not just about us, it is about honoring God and being an example to the world. In the same way that we have to fight for our marriages Jesus gave everything for His relationship with us. It means that much to Him and it should mean that much to us.

 Ephesians 5
21 And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
25 For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her 26 to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.[b] 27 He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. 28 In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. 29 No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. 30 And we are members of his body.

So when it gets hard, don't stop fighting, don't surrender, lay it all down for the ones you love.

1 comment:

  1. Well said Ben. I am very glad your blog showed up on your facebook profile, I wish more men had the type of relationship you have with God.

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