There's Hope for a Great Institution

THE TRAIN FOR New York was filling up fast. I found an empty seat beside a young woman — she was in her twenties, attractive and well dressed. We began to talk, sharing our mutual sorrow over the dumping grounds of America as our train rolled past acres of junked cars, city trash heaps, and strewn backyards. We found we had similar concerns in a number of areas. As the miles clickety-clacked away and our conversation continued, I found the young woman to be surprisingly open about her personal life, specifically her relationship with the boyfriend. He wanted her to live with him, but she wasn't sure she would and she wasn't sure she wouldn't. "I'm definitely not ready for marriage," she said emphatically, "and maybe I never will be."

    "What do you feel about marriage?" I asked.

    "What do you feel about it?" she asked, pointing to my wedding ring.

    "I'm sold on it," I answered. "But, as with any relationship

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worth its salt, it has to be worked at. Good marriages don't just happen — and even the best marriages have problems that need to be worked out."

    "Why stick with it, then?" she asked, looking somewhat pensively at a fold she was adjusting in her skirt. I had a feeling we had touched a sensitive point. "If there is any kind of hassle or inconvenience in a relationship, why stick around?"

    I shared with her for a while the deep satisfaction of a committed relationship as opposed to the popular trend of "punching out" when things get tense. I tried to be honest about some of the hang-ups I had brought into my marriage, about the mixture of love and honesty from wife, Colleen, that I felt characterized the covenant we have together. I explained how Christ had been a great Therapist in our relationship, stripping back the layers of pride I had carefully maintained and adding new styles of openness in which I could communicate my need instead of continuing in my old patterns of self-sufficiency. I told her how Christ had given Colleen, who was raised in a home without a father, the strength and security she needed to emerge as a whole person. I said we felt it took two people, secure enough to risk growing and changing together, to make a good marriage. I talked a bit about our kids — about the terrific joy they had brought into our lives and about some of the honest encounters we had had with them. I guess I got pretty excited, because she looked straight at me and smiled, "You're really turned

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on by marriage, aren't you?" she said.

    "Does it show?" I laughed.

    "Sure does, but I like it. You really find it fulfilling?"

    "Tremendously!"

    "Well, you're one of the few persons I've met who feels that way. You give me hope — but it sure has to work against a lot of bad publicity." Then she told me about her folks' divorce, which had been a source of great pain in her life. She also had a number of friends who had tried marriage and were opting out.

    "Not very good data, is it?" I queried.

    "Nope, but I sure wish it was."

     The train began to slow down. We were coming to her station. She stood up and took her bag from the rack above. Then, with a warm yet wistful look, she tossed me a parting word. "Take care of the good thing you've got going."

    I fumbled for a card in my wallet and handed it to her. A smile crossed her face. "A preacher... Wouldn't you know!" she quipped.

   "But marriage is not just for preachers," I got out just before she was beyond earshot.

    I think I understand what has soured the young woman on marriage. She was like so many other young people I had counseled. They were painfully disappointed with family life as they had known it. They wanted no part of the Standard American Package — the money, the big cars, the house with the oversized mortgage, the pressures, and finally the legal hassles of

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divorce. I imagine my young friend had been given "everything" — except the time, attention, and affection of her parents. Now she was saying, "This is marriage? Not for me!"

    But I felt I heard her saying something more: "I wish it were different. I'd like to believe in marriage, but I just can't believe in the ones I've seen."

    The train jolted forward and we were on our way once again. Alone with my thoughts, I found myself wondering — yet again — what goes wrong with so many marriages.

    Is she, and the many others who share her feelings, being "turned off" by marriages that have given in to the ease of a convenience society, the escape exits of contract relationships, and the staggering changes that are molding our society by sheer pressure?

    "Convenience" had become a key word in our culture. And thank God for many of the conveniences: automobiles, gas stoves, electric refrigerators, airplanes, and what have you. But tragically, convenience has also become a hallmark of our relationships, and there's the rub! "I'll stand by you — so long as it is convenient. But if things get tough, don't expect me to stay around. You're gentle on my mind." That kind of attitude is devastating to the human personality. If a child feels a parent will opt out of the relationship as soon as things become convenient, his very foundations are shaken. Each of us longs to be important to somebody — to somebody who will brave all sorts of barriers to

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come to join us in our moment of need, pushing aside the inconvenience. Each of us needs someone who will be available. Commitment says, "I'll be with you through thick and thin!" That is security!

    Sometimes both partners to the marriage contract are aware of the "small print," but often only one party knows what it says. Suddenly that partner makes the simple accusation, "You have broken the contract." And the relationship comes to a sudden end.

    "But I didn't know," comes the anguished cry of the other, who did not know the conditions of the contract, which were: "You be the successful provider, and I will love you always. But fail, and it is all over." Or perhaps it was: "Be the beautiful, healthy entertainer for my business contracts, and I will forever take good care of your needs. But once you show dissatisfaction with the meaningless chatter of cocktail parties — or if you become ill and unable to function as a hostess — we're finished."

    A covenant, on the other hand, says "My commitment is to you as a person, not to the roles you fulfill for my satisfaction. There is nothing you can say or do that will make me stop loving you."

    The basis for this covenant comes from God himself, who does not turn away from us, his children, just because we have done wrong. He comes back to us again and again, often with honest encounter, but always with untiring love. As I see it, the great example of this love is Jesus, who was God's act of love toward a hostile

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world. Nothing could drive God from his covenant: his commitment was firm. No degree of inconvenience and no broken agreements could suppress the flow of his love.

    All of us yearn for this kind of commitment from the one most important to us. Without it, we just never become the people we were meant to be. Without commitment, we also exhibit an interesting psychological response. Wanting something so basic — yet being frustrated in finding it — we begin to hear the very thing we long for, or we try to rationalize it away. Perhaps this is why some people are turning away from the covenant of marriage to new philosophies of "contract" marriages and convenience relationships. We believe this is part of the problem. Add to this the massive changes in our society in recent years — our technological liberation, the population explosion, the Women's Movement, and so on — plus the lack of authentic, attractive models for marriage, and it's no wonder my young friend was confused and turned off by the institution of marriage.

    And yet the search goes on. According to a National Institute of Mental Health survey, 87 percent of the college students polled listed family life as one of their important goals. It seems it isn't marriage as a relationship that is in question but the quality of the marriage relationship. People are hungry for more fulfilling, deeper relationships in marriage. They are beginning to define marriage as two people who love

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and like each other, who can have fun together, who can share life's highest goals, and who can consciously make a lifelong commitment to each other and to each other's growth as a person. A new generation — and many of the older generation as well — want something more than an empty traditional definition of marriage.

    And that is the purpose of this book — to supply that "more" quality.

    Colleen and I feel there is more. Marriage has a thrilling potential that can be realized by those who are willing to stretch and grow through their commitment to each other and through the process of openness and honesty in their life together. There is much of the old that is worth rediscovering, although admittedly some of the traditional must be challenged. All around us are new discoveries waiting to be incorporated into marriage to make it a richer experience.

    We'll be very straightforward; this is a book of hope! Hope, yes — but not a book pushing a neat little formula that will work in some magical way for every marriage. No two people are alike — no two marriages are alike — God's creation is full of exciting diversity, especially when it comes to people. Within his creative guidelines, there is room for this diversity; he honors it, and so do we. So there will be no surefire answers for all the couples of the world, no "pink pill" approach to successful marriage. Rather, we would like to look with you at some biblical premises in light of our contemporary scene. What, for instance, is the nature of authority and

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the meaning of submission? We intend to dig deeply into the liberating love of Jesus Christ, the Designer of marriages, as we come to grips with some of the problems every marriage has to face. We want to consider the exciting interdependence of persons and the roles of husband and wife not as they are predetermined solely by sex or tradition but they are seen through the New Testament prism of the gifts of the Spirit. We want to look at seven basics of a good marriage. We also want to share some steps in the sometime painful yet liberating process of communication.

    Enough of what we want to write about — and just a word about how we will be writing it. At first we considered doing this book as a dialogue, but we found that to be a very difficult form for us. We then moved on to the idea of a monologue — two person's ideas presented as one voice — but that was both contrived and awkward. Finally, with the help of a few close friends, we decided that the most natural way would be for each of us to write certain chapters, choosing the areas for which our individuals gifts equip us and where we feel most at home.

    One more thing — we have no illusions about our ability to do justice to this vast subject of marriage. We already feel the frustration of not being able to deal with certain areas in depth — and we are keenly aware of the many aspects of life together we are leaving completely untouched, either because of our own limitations or the limitations of time and space. However,

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our prayer is that in the simplicity of what is shared here, there will be a ministry to some. For we see marriage as the most exciting and fulfilling of all human relationships. It is the most practical arena of self-discovery, the most basic building block of any society. It is more than a loving, supportive relationship. Marriage brings together two human beings with everything that is theirs. It invites them to contribute whatever they are — and all that they are — to a new style of life. Marriage enables a man and a woman to give each other the gift of themselves in a lifelong commitment. It is the place of intimate discovery and sharing in which two people can say, "My lover — my friend."

Chapter One  ||  Table of Contents