“I am convinced that many marriages, between people who name themselves as believers, have almost nothing to do with God at all, and this is where the trouble begins. Perhaps the couple has had a little marriage counseling, and perhaps they recited Christian vows before the pastor and the people of the church, but the Christian part of the marriage often ends there.” – Paul Tripp
Paul Tripp talks about in his book What Did You Expect that most people are more concerned with building their own little kingdom rather than building the Kingdom of God. When people get married, they have a view of what their future looks like. Most times it may start as a combined idea of a future together but unfortunately begins to unravel into later years of the husband working on his kingdom of self and the wife on her kingdom of self and then marriage starts to falter.
The key to any marriage is a combined effort to destroy your own idea of a future kingdom and start working on God’s kingdom together. What that looks like is servanthood towards your spouse, giving of oneself to serve the other, keeping the other’s need priority, learning more about them so that you can love them in their love language and not yours, and constantly seeking God by applying Godly values to your marriage.
Sadly, as Paul Tripp was trying to convey, God being part of the marriage stops when the couple walks away from the altar, out the church doors, and into the house. We’ve relegated God to staying in the church and not leaving creating this “We’ll come to you if we need you but other than that, we can do this on our own” idea. This is far from the reality that God should be center of any marriage.
I find it ironic that what God established, we can’t even take the time to make Him part of it.
I’m actually blown away at the thought of this because even though Carrie and I brought God away from the altar eventually it seemed like we drove back to the church and stuck Him back in His box a few years down the road. It’s like we tried it but unconsciously , gave Him back His rightful spot at the church rather than His worthy spot in our hearts. Or since I’m writing this I should say my heart.
A marriage can and will only succeed when we allow worship to happen in our marriage. Meaning when we serve one another, we worship God, when we put our spouse before ourselves, we then worship God. When we make decisions that puts God at the center of that decision, building His kingdom rather than our own, we worship God and marriage succeeds. Only when worshipping God in spirit and truth through our marriage can a marriage stay afloat and be honoring to God
It’s when we leave Him at the altar and drive away with cans stuck to our bumper (how did that start anyway), and begin to build our dream house with picked fences, a dog and two kids, a car and truck, and whatever your dream consisted of (and I’m not saying those are bad things) but where is God in those things. Is that the dream God has for you or are you building your kingdom?
Think about whose kingdom your working on.
