The Kind of Marriage You Deserve

If you spend any amount of time perusing Christian marriage advice content, you’ll notice some themes: keep a date night, date your wife, communicate, prioritize intimacy. And if you spend any amount of time in an actual marriage, you’ll find yourself in seasons where you eat Taco Casa in front of the t.v., communicate via hurried text messages, and function more like a potluck roommate than a romance partner. 

Now to be clear, this isn’t good. Romance matters, communication matters, and you must create space and priority for your marriage to be healthy. But your marriage is not defined by these external factors; it is defined by God. 

Maybe your marriage is not living up to your expectations. Maybe you thought it would be different. Maybe you’re starting to define your marriage by what it isn’t. And maybe — can we be real here? — you’re starting to think you deserve better. 

I’m gonna be a little hard on you for a minute, but I promise it’ll end nicely. 

You don’t deserve your husband. You don’t deserve your wife. You don’t. I don’t mean that in the sense that you deserve better, but rather that you’re insanely fortunate to have a spouse at all. You don’t deserve a perfect marriage, whatever that even means. 

You deserve to serve and sacrifice for the one God has given you. That’s the only thing you’re entitled to: the right and honor to love God’s son or daughter. 

Look at the verbs in the Bible about marriage. (No, not the Song of Solomon ones. That’s a different point, but actually yes go ahead and read those too.) Ephesians 5 says wives submit and husbands sacrifice. 

Submission is costly. It’s not groveling in weakness, nor cowering in fear. It’s intentionally laying down strength in honor for the other. 

Sacrifice is, well…sacrificial. The Bible says husbands are to die for their wives like Jesus died for His wife, the church. This means there is no limit to what you should do to love and serve your wife.

These roles are rooted not in best practices or research, but in the posture of Christ on the cross. He submits to the Father’s will to save you, laying His very life down so you’d have life. He did not roll His eyes, nor sigh in contempt when He died for you. He did it for the joy set before Him. His holy heart led Him to love you to the point of death on a cross.

And that, my dear friends, is what your marriage is. It’s an opportunity to lay your life down that your spouse might have life. If this is what your expectation of marriage is — deep, consistent sacrificial love — you will never be off course. Whether your marriage feels like dragging a cross up a hill or the end of a romcom when the guy gets the girl, this mission remains. 

I want to say two things about this sacrifice, and then I need to end this article before you stop reading to scroll Christian marriage advice accounts on Instagram. 

First, this sacrifice has a purpose. Your sacrifice in marriage is like Christ’s, and that’s because your sacrifice is to demonstrate and display the love of Christ to them. It’s actually not about you, and how wonderfully giving you are. It’s about reenacting the gospel in your relationship so they can see Jesus a little more clearly. You sacrifice so your husband or wife would see Jesus as more beautiful.

Second, this sacrifice has a motivational wellspring. You are not gritting your teeth and clenching your fists to serve your beloved, you are serving as you’ve been served as Christ’s beloved. You’re responding to His transformational love. In this way, marital love should be more natural than forced, and more dance than death march. You are just giving the love you’ve been drenched with by Jesus.

If you are married, you must come to grips with God’s intentional gift of your spouse. He chose to love you so you could love them. So whether or not your marriage fits the criteria you’ve placed upon it, know it fits His criteria: an opportunity to bless and honor His name.