“Marriage Is To Make You Holy Not Happy”?
Lastly, let’s address the contemporary churchy motto:
“The purpose of marriage is to make you holy, not happy.”
While there may be some real wisdom, beauty, and truth to this idea, there’s also some real danger when it’s used as a weapon against people in unhealthy marriages.
Gary Thomas wrote a popular Christian book called Sacred Marriage built around this idea that marriage is to make us holy, not happy. He echoes the sentiment Paul may have been referring to that the stay at home wife and mother may have more opportunity for spiritual refinement than a monk, for example.
Not too long after he wrote the book, however, he became aware of the dark side of this catchy phrase and wrote a moving blog post about it. He wrote:
I recently spoke at a long-standing North American women's conference and was overwhelmed by the quantity and horrific nature of things wives are having to put up with in their marriages. Between sessions, I was bombarded by heartfelt inquiries: “What does a wife do when her husband does this? Or that? Or keeps doing this?” It broke my heart.
One wife began our conversation with, “God hates divorce, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I believe He does.”
“So, I’ve just got to accept what’s happening in my marriage, right?”
When she told me what was happening, I quickly corrected her. “If the cost of saving a marriage is destroying a woman, the cost is too high. God loves people more than he loves institutions.”
I have seen this idea “marriage is to make us holy, not happy” used as modern-day stones cast by the church. And I just want you to hear an important clarification from the guy who literally wrote the book on it:
Jesus said what he said about divorce to protect women, not to imprison them. Divorce was a weapon foisted against women in the first century, not one they could use, and it almost always left them destitute if their family of origin couldn’t or wouldn’t step up.
How does it honor the concept of “Christian marriage” to enforce the continuance of an abusive, destructive relationship that is slowly squeezing all life and joy out of a woman’s soul? Our focus has to be on urging men to love their wives like Christ loves the church, not on telling women to put up with husbands mistreating their wives.
I love marriage—even the struggles of marriage, which God can truly use to grow us and shape us—but I hate it when God’s daughters are abused. And I will never defend a marriage over a woman’s emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
I highly recommend reading his full blog post.
Listen carefully to what God is saying to you right now.
In all that you’ve read here, what is true? What is coming from God?
Can you sort out all the voices you hear and let go of anything that doesn’t ring true (including anything that I may be saying or communicating that doesn’t resonate deeply with you)?
Let the rest fall away. Rest in what God tells you.
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