Relationships | The path to a happy marriage

«Sub­mit your­sel­ves one to ano­ther in the fear of Christ» (Ephe­si­ans 5:21). This sen­tence is the over­tu­re to the gre­at pas­sa­ge on mar­ria­ge in Ephe­si­ans 5, which actual­ly con­ta­ins ever­y­thing we need for a hap­py and ful­fil­ling mar­ria­ge. It is simp­le and requi­res cou­ra­ge. Anyo­ne who puts their per­so­nal hap­pi­ness first and endea­vours to be hap­py at all cos­ts is well on the way to losing their last bit of happiness.

Unbro­ken is an exci­ting film about the Ame­ri­can World War II hero Lou­ie Zam­pe­ri­ni. During a mis­si­on in 1943, his aero­pla­ne cra­s­hed into the Paci­fic. Most of the crew mem­bers were kil­led. After 47 days in a rub­ber ding­hy sur­roun­ded by sharks, Lou­ie and ano­ther sur­vi­vor were taken pri­soner of war by the Japa­ne­se for two and a half years of bea­tings, humi­lia­ti­on and tor­tu­re. Retur­ning to the US after the war, he suf­fe­r­ed from seve­re post-trau­ma­tic stress dis­or­der and beca­me an alco­ho­lic. His wife, Cyn­thia, lost all hope for their mar­ria­ge. Lou­ie spent his time dre­a­ming of retur­ning to Japan to ass­as­si­na­te «the bird», a Japa­ne­se NCO who had repea­ted­ly tor­tu­red him in the camps. One night he dreamt of the «bird» hove­ring over him. He leapt up to defend hims­elf. A vio­lent scream woke him up – he was sit­ting on his pregnant wife’s chest with his hands around her throat. Not long after­wards, Cyn­thia told him that she wan­ted a divorce. It was a shock, but he was too in the grip of his past and bit­ter­ness to change.

Then, in the autumn of 1949, Cyn­thia atten­ded a tent cru­sa­de that a young pre­a­cher, Bil­ly Gra­ham, was hol­ding in the city. She came back as a dif­fe­rent woman, went straight to Lou­ie and told him that she was with­dra­wing her divorce, that she had just met God and that he abso­lut­e­ly had to come with her. To make a long sto­ry short: Lou­ie accept­ed Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour on the second evening. He was instant­ly free from his alco­ho­lism. Not only that, but he felt the love of God flowing through his life. He rea­li­sed that he could now for­gi­ve all tho­se who had tor­tu­red and tor­men­ted him as a pri­soner of war. His rela­ti­onship with Cyn­thia was rene­wed; they beca­me a hap­py cou­ple. In Octo­ber 1950, Lou­ie was able to return to Japan and speak at the pri­son, whe­re many of his for­mer jai­lers were now ser­ving time them­sel­ves. He spo­ke of the power of Christ’s grace to bring for­gi­ve­ness, and then he embra­ced ever­yo­ne with a loving smile.

Even if this sto­ry sounds a bit dra­ma­tic, it actual­ly hap­pen­ed that way. God’s spi­rit does not always work so sud­den­ly and direct­ly, but the con­tent of his work is always the same. What is the secret of mar­ria­ge? It is so simp­le that Paul can sum­ma­ri­se it in one sen­tence: «Sub­mit your­sel­ves one to ano­ther in the fear of Christ» (Ephe­si­ans 5:21 LUT).

Fullness instead of vacuum

This sen­tence is the begin­ning of the famous pas­sa­ge on mar­ria­ge. Hid­den in it are two fac­tors that enable a per­son to live mar­ria­ge out of abundance:

• Fil­ling with the Holy Spi­rit. A Spi­rit-fil­led life and mar­ria­ge are clo­se­ly lin­ked. In the Greek text, this ver­se is the last clau­se of the long pre­ce­ding sen­tence, in which Paul men­ti­ons seve­ral cha­rac­te­ristics of a per­son fil­led with the Spi­rit of God. The last cha­rac­te­ristic is the giving up of pri­de and self-will, which leads us to ser­ve others in humi­li­ty. From this Spi­rit-indu­ced sub­mis­si­on, Paul then moves on to the duties of wives and hus­bands. Being fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit must hap­pen again and again and is the pre­re­qui­si­te for a mar­ria­ge as descri­bed by Paul. That is why Paul recom­mends: «Do not stop allo­wing your­sel­ves to be fil­led with God’s Spi­rit» (Ephe­si­ans 5:18 ver­ba­tim). In a mar­ria­ge, it some­ti­mes feels like we are run­ning on our last drop of petrol. But then it’s good to know whe­re the petrol sta­ti­on is. The Holy Spi­rit wri­tes the truths about Jesus (John 14:17, 26) into our hearts, crea­ting an inner music, an inner rejoi­cing. «[…] sing and rejoice from the depths of your heart to the glo­ry of the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father always and for ever­y­thing in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord» (Ephe­si­ans 5:19–20 New Testament).
• The fear of the Lord. «Sub­mit to each other in the fear of Christ» (Ephe­si­ans 5:21 LUT). Fear in the Bible means to be over­whel­med and moved by some­thing or someone. To fear God means to be over­whel­med by His great­ness and love. To fear God means to fall down befo­re Him in ado­ring ama­ze­ment at His glo­ry and beauty.

Being fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit and the fear of the Lord are ulti­m­ate­ly the same thing. Both for­mu­la­ti­ons refer to an inner spi­ri­tu­al expe­ri­ence. Both lead peo­p­le out of them­sel­ves into a sel­fless­ness crea­ted by the Spi­rit. The mar­vel­ling joy of Christ’s devo­ti­on and love is the moti­va­ti­on behind all calls to sub­mis­si­on, love and service.

So it does­n’t work out well when two nee­dy and inse­cu­re peo­p­le look for their value and mea­ning in the arms of their part­ner. If you join two vacu­ums tog­e­ther, you get a big­ger vacu­um, a gigan­tic suck­ing sound is crea­ted. Paul assu­mes that each of the part­ners has alre­a­dy recei­ved an ans­wer to the big ques­ti­ons of life and knows what God has crea­ted them for and who they are in Christ. Tho­se who are fil­led with the Spi­rit of God and live in the fear of the Lord do not need a spou­se for their hap­pi­ness or to cover their short­co­mings. It’s easy, but requi­res a lot of cou­ra­ge. You have to take the step befo­re you know what will come back.

Subordination instead of playing boss

Now our tank is full of petrol and we can step on the gas. And only then, when I am fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit, do I have ever­y­thing I need to sub­mit to my spou­se. In ver­ses 22–24, Paul calls on wives to sub­mit to their hus­bands. But imme­dia­te­ly after­wards he calls on hus­bands to love their wives as Christ loves the church: «He laid down his life for them» (V. 25 NEW TESTAMENT). This is an even stron­ger call to sel­fless­ness. Whe­ther hus­band or wife, both should not live for them­sel­ves, but for the other – and that is the most dif­fi­cult and at the same time most important task we have as hus­band and wife in a mar­ria­ge. EIFACH mue­tig – Jesus as a role model.

The term sub­or­di­na­te is often misun­ders­tood or even per­cei­ved nega­tively, espe­ci­al­ly when we think of hier­ar­chies and power struc­tures. But in the bibli­cal con­text, it is not about oppres­si­on or the loss of one’s own digni­ty. Sub­or­di­na­ti­on rather means that we vol­un­t­a­ri­ly place our­sel­ves at the ser­vice of others out of love for one ano­ther. It is a vol­un­t­a­ry atti­tu­de that respects others more than ones­elf, that rea­ches out for the good of others.

Here Paul appli­es a gene­ral prin­ci­ple of beha­viour towards fel­low human beings to mar­ria­ge. In Phil­ip­pians 2:2–3 Paul says: «[…] be hum­ble and respect others more than your­sel­ves.» In Romans 15:1–3, Paul chal­lenges us: «We should behave in such a way that it helps the other per­son and encou­ra­ges them in their faith. For even Christ did not live for hims­elf alo­ne.» And in Gala­ti­ans 5:13 he asks us to ser­ve (word for slave) one ano­ther in love.

Selflessness instead of self-centredness

Mutu­al sub­mis­si­on faces a gre­at ene­my – our self-cent­red­ness. This has been ing­rai­ned in us humans from birth and has its cau­se in the fal­len crea­ti­on and our sin­ful hearts. Alt­hough a suc­ces­sor has beco­me a «new per­son», sel­fi­sh­ness still shows through from time to time. On the other hand, the under­stan­ding of mar­ria­ge has chan­ged. For cen­tu­ries, mar­ria­ge was seen as an eco­no­mic and social insti­tu­ti­on, and the emo­tio­nal and intellec­tu­al needs of the part­ners were secon­da­ry to the sur­vi­val of the mar­ria­ge its­elf. Today, the focus is on the self-rea­li­sa­ti­on of the indi­vi­du­al. The idea of self-rea­li­sa­ti­on assu­mes that mar­ria­ge and fami­ly pri­ma­ri­ly ser­ve our per­so­nal ful­film­ent and that we need them to be hap­py. It starts with loo­king for «just the right part­ner». Important cri­te­ria here are phy­si­cal attrac­ti­ve­ness and sexu­al che­mis­try. You also look for someone who is per­fect­ly com­pa­ti­ble, someone who accepts me as I am and does­n’t want to chan­ge me, someone who vali­da­tes me, someone who helps me achie­ve my goals. The focus is on my per­so­nal ful­film­ent and no lon­ger on the mar­ria­ge. That is an abso­lu­te poi­son. Anyo­ne who puts their per­so­nal hap­pi­ness first and endea­vours to be hap­py at all cos­ts is well on the way to gambling away their last bit of happiness.

This assump­ti­on over­looks the fact that we always mar­ry the wrong per­son. We never know who we’­re going to mar­ry; we only ima­gi­ne it. And even if we get the «right one» – just wait a litt­le while and he will start to chan­ge. The chall­enge is: How do I learn to love and be the­re for this stran­ger I mar­ried? My spou­se is the per­son who can bring out the worst in me. But it also means that this is whe­re the grea­test poten­ti­al for growth and chan­ge lies.

In Lou­ie Zamperini’s case, the wounds he brought were obvious. Each of us brings our histo­ry of hurt into mar­ria­ge: emo­tio­nal or phy­si­cal negle­ct or abu­se, betra­y­al, trau­ma­tic expe­ri­en­ces, rejec­tion, words that hurt, etc. Inju­ries make us preoc­cu­p­ied with our­sel­ves and thus rein­force our self-cent­red­ness. That is why it is important that we tre­at our wounds with pas­to­ral care.

In Zamperini’s case, it was the gos­pel that made him a bet­ter hus­band. St Paul descri­bes the effect of the gos­pel: «He died for all, so that tho­se who recei­ve his new life may no lon­ger live for them­sel­ves. Rather, they should live for Christ, who died and rose again for them» (2 Corin­thi­ans 5:15 NLB). Accor­ding to the Bible, this is the essence of sin: that we live for our­sel­ves and not for God and our spou­se. Whe­re the Spi­rit of God can chan­ge us from the insi­de out, we expe­ri­ence this won­derful reo­ri­en­ta­ti­on. HE cau­ses us to love God and live for Him and to love our spou­se and put their needs abo­ve our own. King Solo­mon wri­tes: «I belong to my bel­oved and my bel­oved belongs to me» (Song of Songs 6:3 NLB) – here it beco­mes clear that love gives its­elf away and is not taken away.

A wide-ran­ging sur­vey shows that the­re are many unhap­py mar­ried cou­ples. But if they stay tog­e­ther any­way, two thirds of the­se spou­ses say five years later that they are hap­py. That’s hope! Last Sun­day, my wife and I had a real argu­ment. In bet­ween, we said that cer­tain pat­terns of beha­viour are unli­kely to chan­ge after 32 years of mar­ria­ge. On Tues­day, I spo­ke to my Cana­di­an men­tor about my sad­ness and frus­tra­ti­on – inclu­ding the fact that I am sup­po­sed to preach a ser­mon on mar­ria­ge today. He made it very clear to me that this inci­dent does not dis­qua­li­fy me. On the con­tra­ry; if I was honest and trans­pa­rent, the ser­mon could achie­ve a lot. I was also given new hope that a lot of chan­ge is still pos­si­ble in our mar­ria­ge. In the silence, the Holy Spi­rit gave me the pro­mi­se: «I am the vine; you are the bran­ches. He who abides in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit» (John 15:5 NLB).

Possible questions for the small groups

Read the Bible text: Ephe­si­ans 5:18–33

1. What does being fil­led with the Holy Spi­rit have to do with mana­ging relationships?
2. What does the phra­se «in the fear of the Lord» mean? What does this have to do with submission?
3. What does it mean to sub­mit to one ano­ther? What is Jesus» exam­p­le in this regard? Talk to your spou­se about how you could give each other sel­fless love.
4. Whe­re are you suf­fe­ring in your marital rela­ti­onship and would like to chan­ge? What could be the start­ing point for change?
5. Whe­re do your inju­ries play into your rela­ti­onships? Have you work­ed through your histo­ry of hurt?