Great Marriages Have This One Thing

Standing at the altar, bride and groom are entranced. They are dressed up, made up, and as fit as they could get before the wedding. They turn shoulder-to-shoulder, interlacing their trembling hands — and their eyes meet.

This moment feels like a finale, the ending to a great story. The guy gets the girl. Roll credits.

But this is a beginning.

Soon they will change out of their fancy clothes. Their family and friends will go back to their home towns. They will stand together in ordinary clothes, new rings on their hands, and a brand new commitment to one another. The wedding is over; marriage begins.

As a pastor, I have the blessing of seeing marriages begin and the sorrow of seeing them end. And I also get to see the beautiful middle, God infusing grace powerfully through two sinners who have become one flesh.

I want to share in this article the one common factor I have noticed in great marriages. By a great marriage, by the way, I do not mean a marriage devoid of struggle. I do not mean a marriage with unbridled passion. I do not mean marriage on the wedding day. I mean a real, thriving, Jesus-dependent marriage.

They all have a shared horizon, and that horizon is Christ.

A Shared Horizon

If you stare at your spouse long enough, you’ll see sin. Yes, you’ll see an image-bearer of God, wonderfully made. People are masterpieces. But you’ll also see ugliness, because sin has vandalized God’s image in us. If you want to have a critical eye, you’ll have plenty of material.

A Christian marriage is not an endless look into the eyes of your spouse; it’s an endless look into the heart of Christ. To do this, husband and wife turn from facing one another and, shoulder-to-shoulder, behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus. Tim Keller describes this in his outstanding book The Meaning of Marriage as spiritual friendship:

“Friendship is a deep oneness that develops when two people, speaking the truth in love to one another, journey together to the same horizon.” -Tim Keller

A horizon is a dawn or a dusk. The sun going up or going down. But in any case, it is a future to which we look. We are looking to a new day the Lord has made or a new night to rest in His grace. Made clear, this metaphor in marriage means we as husband and wife look to Jesus as our hope and future.

Competing Horizons

If great marriages have Christ as their shared horizon, what do broken marriages have? They have competing horizons. Their gaze is not in agreement.

Competing horizons do not create terminal problems at first. The wedding day bliss continues for a while, and these competing horizons might even feel exciting because you’re living with someone very different from you. But when suffering comes, or when a big decision comes, or when crises come — the horizon will matter very much. If we begin a journey together and I’m headed west while you’re headed northwest, we will eventually be in different zip codes.

If one spouse is looking to Christ for salvation, joy, meaning, and life and the other is looking to a competing idol — be it comfort from food, pleasure from sex, power from money or achievement, or exalting children to godlike status — there is at least one anchor. The apostle Paul talks about the power of a believing spouse remaining in 1 Corinthians 7. It’s a hard job, but it is worthy and beautiful to remain affixed on the horizon of Christ even if your spouse isn’t. You are a missionary.

Sometimes believing spouses can, for a time, have competing horizons. Positionally, meaning in terms of salvation, they may be followers of Jesus together. But practically, one or both of them are struggling with idolatry. They’ve looked away from Christ. The marriage will suffer accordingly, because looking away from Christ is to look away from life. The other horizons are not horizons at all, but mirages with no living water.

Marriages with competing horizons feel lost, because that’s what they are. Two people going in the wrong direction.

Let’s Get Practical

If having Jesus as a shared horizon is the essential element for a happy, healthy, God-honoring marriage, what does that look like? How do we do this, starting this week? Let me provide some actionable counsel here. Here are 3 lenses through which you can look to Christ as your horizon:

1. Go to church together. Make it a priority to literally sit together, shoulder-to-shoulder, beholding Jesus in the word. Make it a priority to stand together, singing praises to Jesus in song. Worship shapes you — be shaped together. Do not undervalue the power of the gathering of the saints for your marital health.

2. Pray together before going to sleep. Both can pray, but the husband must initiate. Don’t get weirdly religious about it. Thank God for the day and ask for rest. You are, as one flesh, uniting your souls in remembering who God is before you go to sleep — which is itself an act of faith that God will sustain you as you sleep.

   
   

3. Repent together. Marriage is two sinners becoming one. You’re going to wound each other. That’s not a sign something is wrong; it’s just a sign that you’re human. All marriages have conflict, but the question is what do you do with it? Draw a circle around yourself, confess your sin, ask for forgiveness — and let it be given. Forgive your spouse as God in Christ has forgiven you. This shows you believe the gospel.

You may have been looking for something more interesting or dramatic, but if you will implement these 3 things this week, you will begin working toward a shared horizon. Don’t be too rigid about it, and if your spouse is resistant, show them grace and pray for them and…give them time. It will start with you.

Before wrapping up, can I offer some hope for those of you with struggling marriages? I have seen the Lord restore obliterated marriages by His grace. It is never too late. God is for the restoration of your marriage, and He can do what you can’t even picture yet. Trust Him, and don’t lose heart.

A great marriage is one that displays the sacrificial love of Jesus by remembering the sacrificial love of Jesus. So whether you’ve been married for 4 months or 40 years, you have the opportunity to turn your shoulders toward Him as the guiding light and supreme hope of your life. And to get to do that with another person is one of the greatest joys offered this side of heaven.