This past Saturday my husband and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. He planned a beautiful day which begun with a hike in the Amherst area where we both went to college. The hike was followed by a visit to a beautiful garden after which we took our kids on a little tour of our old stomping grounds aka our alma matter aka our college where we begun our relationship. We ended the day at a restaurant in town that held fond memories.
As I reflected on our marriage, I considered writing on a few different topics, but I kept being drawn to a post I had shared on Facebook about two months ago. It said:
Feelings don’t sustain relationships, commitment does. Feelings don’t sustain marriages, covenant does. Feelings are fickle and even the strongest of emotion ebbs and flows/even dwindles. In rocky times where feelings are buried deep underneath the rubbles of pain and hurt, appearing completely lost, Covenant upholds relationships till feelings get back on track.
Dear commitment-phobic, do not be afraid of committing. A covenant isn’t a prison, it is protection. Protection of the relationship with the one you love. Because when feelings fail, and fail they will, covenant will be there. It’ll keep you working and striving and doing hard work to ensure the preservation of the union. And a relationship that has been preserved by covenant and made it out the other end is nothing compared to a relationship built on only feelings. There’s depth and beauty and confidence and trust and freedom and yes, intensified feelings.
I suppose that post really sums up the bulk of what these past 6 years, especially the past year, has taught me. Let’s flesh it out some more though…
THE PROTECTION OF COVENANT
If I had to define marriage, I’d say it’s a covenant relationship ordained by God between two consenting adults (male & female) established in the presence of witnesses (and sealed with sexual intercourse), with the purpose of portraying an earthly representation of the divine relationship between Christ and His bride, the church. (Genesis 2:21-24, Mark 10:8, Ephesians 5:31-33)
Marriage isn’t merely the natural succession of an amorous relationship between two people in love. Nor is it merely a contract signed by two consenting individuals that can be annulled when the conditions aren’t ideal. What sets marriage apart from other “agreements or commitments between two consenting individuals, is that it is a covenant. There’s a reason why marriage is a covenant. Covenants are binding, holding two parties to uphold their end of the bargain for the long haul irrespective of what the future may bring or what feelings become. Beware of entering marriage with a Hollywood version of love which runs on autopilot fueled only by feelings/physical attraction.
A DIVINE EXAMPLE
Scripturally we see that whenever God chooses a people, He immediately establishes covenant with them (E.g: Abrahamic covenant, Old covenant with His people Israel, new covenant with all believers in Jesus Christ). It seems a safe deduction to say that the only way to have a lifelong institution with flawed, imperfect humans is by covenant. In other words, covenant preserves.
Imagine God opted to establish his relations with us based on feelings influenced by our actions. If His feelings changed based on our unfaithfulness, then we were basically doomed. Thankfully, rather than establish an eternal relationship with flawed sinful man based on feelings, be it divine or mortal feelings, He establishes covenant. His word says, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.”( 2 Timothy 2:13) The Hebrews writer puts it this way,
“For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself: I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply you. And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and for them a confirming oath ends every dispute. Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us.”- Hebrews 6:13-18
WHY COVENANT PROTECTS
Life is full of many surprises, and unexpected happenings, all of which our fleeting feelings are susceptible to. People are living beings, constantly changing and growing and evolving. Not to mention, humans are naturally flawed, and even the best of people hurt those they love. Since this is so, it would seem that attempting to have a permanent relationship based on feelings alone rather than covenant is futile. It would seem that perhaps the glue that holds together a long-lasting marriage isn’t necessarily the initial feelings of love but the covenant that forces both parties to dig through the rubbles life damps on the union, to reconnect again and again and again and to do the work of love. It forces both parties to choose to do the work of forgiveness (and repentance) in spite of intense feelings that threatens to pull them apart. This is true both for the covenant between God and His chosen people as it is for the covenant of marriage.
A HEALTHY MARRIAGE CANNOT RELY ON FEELINGS
Thus, marriage does not and cannot run on autopilot. It needs to be cultivated and requires intentionality. Nor can it be sustained long-term by feelings alone. There’s a sense in which we have all been spotted by the world to varying extents. We have been indoctrinated with Greco-Roman philosophies and ideas of love. We have been catechized (oblivious to us) through media about what love looks like and what makes a happy marriage. Even those of us who enter marriage with a proper biblical understanding of what marriage and biblical love is, may soon find that the bulk of our marital work will be in the constant renewal of our minds from these shallow/poisonous views of love to a much more wholesome one.
Feelings (both negative and positive ones) are powerful, they can be very overpowering, they can cloud our best judgment. In the ecstasy of warm fuzzy feelings, it is easy to make rush decisions without counting the cost. Likewise, in the heat of hardships, it’s incredibly tough to see beyond the pain, the frustration, the fears. If I had foreseen myself weeping on that floor and agonizing over a lost first baby, while emotions were raw, had someone asked me if I wanted to experience pregnancy, I would say no. I would want nothing to do with anything that could bring me to that gut-wrenching experience. But how much I would have missed out on the unfathomable joys of motherhood if I had opted out of it by that experience alone. The same is true for marriage and the many experiences it is comprised of.
A marriage is intended to be lifetime, yielding it to countless potential hardships as well as great times. Thus a marriage simply needs something more stable than fickle fleeting feelings if it even stands a chance to be anything more than temporary. There’s a reason why traditional marriage vows have the clause- for better or for worse- in them. On the day of getting married, the excitement and overpowering positive feelings makes us feel silly to even be saying the “for worse” part because how can this marriage be anything but amazing! But believe me, for worse does come and sometimes it comes by no doing of you and your spouse but it can affect you both. Most times, for worse does come because you are two flawed humans living in a fallen world.
When I got married 6 years ago, I knew that there will be ups and downs but I didn’t necessarily know what they will be or how they will affect us. For instance, I didn’t anticipate we will lose a baby during pregnancy. I didn’t know what it would be like to be pregnant full term and to go through labor. I didn’t know what an incredibly great job my husband would do assisting me during an extremely long labor with my son’s birth and a difficult delivery/postpartum. I had no idea how becoming a mom will kick my butt yet change me for the better. I had no idea that I would become the kind of mom that I am and make the kind of choices I make. I didn’t know how sacrificial my love would be and how much I would give of myself day in and day out for my family. I didn’t foresee my husband (and all his coworkers) losing his/their jobs suddenly. I didn’t foresee all the ways both I and my husband will change for better and frankly at times will change in more frustrating ways. I didn’t foresee all the ways my husband will struggle with things that seemed to come so naturally to him.
Ed and I have endured a lot of challenging moments together, both self-inflicted from our own sinful natures as well as the many hard-times life throws at us, affectionately called lemons. I’d say dealing with the lemons life has thrown us has not been quite as difficult as dealing with the sinful natures of each other. As I ponder over all this, I can’t help but wonder, if I had to make the decision to get married in the heat of those trying times when we couldn’t see eye to eye, would I have opted for it? If I had foreseen the very difficult moments/seasons of marriage and if I had been asked to get married in the heat of it, while emotions were raw and overpowering, I would probably have said umm, no thanks. I’d rather not deal with any frustration or pain of any sort thanks. And how I would have missed out on the incredible life and family that God has blessed us with.
EMBRACE COVENANT FOR THE BLESSING THAT IT IS
There are just some things we simply cannot anticipate until we have walked through them, and that is actually a good thing. It is a great thing that God does not show us our tomorrows before they happen. I have a feeling most of us will miss out on some of the most incredible moments of our lives based on making choices fueled by self-preservation, if we knew the future. For all too often, the blessings we enjoy are disguised in hardships. In fact, there are many who are sitting out on some of life’s greatest blessings because of fear of tomorrow. For isn’t that what fear of commitment is? The what-ifs? The potential of being hurt? The potential of being dissatisfied? May I encourage you, that the treasures we seek are rarely in plain sight; they are often hidden deep, waiting for those brave enough to do the hardwork required to unveil them.
This is not to say that I entered into marriage in naivety or that I didn’t anticipate hard times will come. If you know me personally or have read any of my writings, particularly in the beginning of my marriage, I’m sure you know by now that I’m not afraid of the prospect of a relationship encountering difficult times. I absolutely didn’t expect smooth-sailing as I understood that marriage is a workroom of sanctification. I went into marriage well aware that I was not a perfect human and was getting married to another imperfect human in an altogether imperfect world and thus many were the opportunities for hardships. Yet I chose to get married anyways after counting the cost because my love for him as well as my desire to be his wife and have a godly family outweighed my fear of what the future may bring.
Moreover, I had the understanding that as much as marriage seemed to be about my husband and I, it ultimately was not about us but about Christ and His union with His bride- the church. And that it was towards this end that we both were to corporate and submit to God’s design for marriage, to build together a marriage that is a portrait of this glorious mystery, that His purpose for marriage is not blasphemed. Not to mention, I had the comfort of knowing that I was getting married to a disciple of Jesus and a man under authority. I had the assurance that no matter how bad things get, by virtue of us both being disciples and committed to walking in Christlikeness, and under the authority of our local church, we weren’t gonna remain in sin forever. We would progressively become more like Jesus. In short, I had hope that we wouldn’t blow it.
What then? Do we shy away from pursuing the most incredible human relation providentially instituted? No, we don’t but we also don’t enter it all willy-nilly. We enter into it prepared to commit, prepared to persevere, prepared to overcome, prepared to put in every last bit of grit, every last ounce of courage, to fight whatever and whoever attempts to put it assunder- even if that person is our very own selves. And how often it is our own selves- our flesh, our ego, our pride, our self-centeredness, our unforgiveness- that the enemy takes hold of to bring destruction.
I believe that Covenant is the difference between those who marry for a period (even if it’s 30 years), and those who have a god-honoring marriage for a lifetime. The strength of covenant lies within the fact that it isn’t affected by human feelings or circumstances. I believe in our modern day we struggle to understand the scope of what a covenant is because our words have very little meaning these days. We throw around our words/promises without any real commitment/intent to follow through. We misuse and abuse words all the time. We say things we don’t really mean and say things emotionally. In a nutshell, we have become a people whose words have very little integrity. As a matter of fact because our words have such little value, we feel the need to swear/make an oath when we really want to be taken at our word. Now even swears (oaths)/promises have little value. In fact even covenant is treated casually now. We have to be careful to realize that just because something is treated casually by man does not imply that reflects how God views it.
There is a reason why scriptures instructs us to let our yes be yes and our no, no. Our words should be bond, and we shouldn’t make a habit of saying things we don’t mean. It’s hard to understand how binding an oath is when our words hold no water these days. It is not so with God though. I encourage you to read throughout scripture to form a better understanding of what a covenant and an oath means to God. A few scriptures to get you started are James 5:12, Matthew 5:37, Ecclesiastes 5:4-5, Hebrews 9:15, Psalms 89: 34-37, Hebrews 6:13-20, 1 John 5:7-11, Hebrews 7, Malachi 2:14.
Have you ever pondered over the fact that for the believer, our very eternity is secure ONLY because God made a covenant that He intends to keep? Imagine if God woke up one day and decided He wanted out of that covenant and that it no longer mattered that Jesus died for your sins? Imagine God decided to say, “forget that covenant, each person pays for their own sins against me now!” Oh what a frightful, trembling, sobering thought! If you think covenant is not a big deal, think again! A true believer is secured eternally only because God chose to bind HImself to an oath, and is committed to it perpetually! Praise the Lord for His unwavering faithfulness! May the Lord help us to be imitators of Him in such faithfulness.
6 years ago, I stood on my wedding day with somewhat of a clue on what to expect but truly clueless of what the details of our tomorrows would look like. Yet I was prepared to handle whatever would come. Despite having several reasons to be, I wasn’t afraid of the future and I made a commitment boldly. That commitment, that covenant, has been the greatest thing I’ve done for our marriage. So I stand (technically sitting here) again today, not knowing the next 6 years would bring, not knowing what our tomorrows would look like and with reasons to be afraid. But I’m renewing my commitment yet again, confident that greater is He that is in me, and in my husband Ed than he that is in the world.
In His Love and Light,
Ivy