The Meaning of Marriage

The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller!  Read it, everyone.
I actually just finished this book this morning and wanted to reflect on it and think through everything I learned from it.  Now some of you might be asking me why I am reading a book on marriage if I am not married.  Marriage is actually something that God has placed a desire on my heart for.  I like to more think of it as my calling to be a wife and a mother.  I want to be a stay at home mom and raise my children so they know they are loved by their parents and are adored by Jesus.  I want to teach them, too, how to and what freedom and delight it is to adore Jesus themselves.  I want to be a wife to a man who is a follower of Jesus above everything else in life.  I want to marry a man who loves Jesus a lot more than he loves me.  I want people to be able to see my marriage and to see something different and to question it.  I want people to observe the love of Jesus through the way my husband loves me and the way I serve and love my husband.  When I think about the marriage God has for me I think of something so much BETTER than anything that can be depicted in movies.  Now with all of that said, I have been so blessed and am very content in the place God has me right now.  He has been so good to me in teaching me a ton about marriage and what He wants from it.  I am so thankful to be single as He teaches me because I can better understand it in relation to Him in my marriage rather than getting caught up in fantasizing and seeing everything in terms of me and a specific person.  Although I read this book and was unable to practically go home and make changes with a husband, it has given me a much broader picture on what to expect(good and hard) and has given me specific areas to pray regarding a marriage in the future.
This book began with sort of the history of marriage and how we ended up in the place we are at today.  No other time in history have people been entering into marriage looking to be self fulfilled by another person like they do today.  This is something that Keller refers to as the "Me-Marriage."  People are getting married because of the way that person makes them feel.  So you see the selfishness in all of that.  The thing that is so obvious is the fact that when people do this, they are putting expectations on a man/woman to fulfill them in a way that only Jesus Christ can do.  They expect their spouse to do something they simply can not do.  That is why people leave their marriages so often is because their spouse is not fulfilling them the way they expected them to do.
Marriage is a very powerful thing.  It was something that was beautifully created by God BEFORE sin entered into the world.  This means God felt it necessary and needed even when a person was in full union with God.  I love this!
Talking with a friend who has now been married for about a year and her and her husband are absolutely beautiful and honoring God has also helped me put these things I have been learning into a tangible picture.  She openly talked about how much your selfishness is shown to you in marriage.  This is actually a blessing when you think about it!  God has created marriage to sanctify you.  At the end of the day, God wants and will use your spouse to help reveal your sin so you can repent from it.  As a spouse that is what we should be helping, praying through and be open to receive from your own spouse.  There is not a closer, more connected human that you will even be with on earth.  The power of truth in marriage to talk through these sins with one another is so important!  The power of love in a marriage to lift each other up with kind, soft words that direct each other to Jesus and repentance and the power of Grace which was first displayed to us through Jesus to allow each other to forgive.  There is not another relationship on earth that can do the things marriage can do to you.  It is a blessing!  Begin looking at your spouse with eyes to see the things which God is doing in them.  See them as people who are being shaped by God into the people that will one day be complete in the sight of God!
The meaning of marriage is a selfish one but rather a selfless one.  It is to be a partner with your spouse, each having unique roles, to be an instrument in which God will use to sanctify your spouse.  What a blessing to be that person in someone's life!
I don't want this to seem as though I have rose colored glasses on and I think marriage will be a piece of cake.  I Don't!  I actually think that marriage will be the hardest relationship I have been in.  But I also know the power of God and the power of prayer and how much He will also be fighting for my marriage to be the way He wants it.  I know it will be hard but I know it will be beautiful as the Holy Spirit works on me and the spouse God blesses me with.