Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

The intimate mysteries of marriage

It's all about glory

By Terri Speicher

Published November 1, 2010 in Witness

“We’re doing well enough to be blinded to the things we aren’t doing well at all,” is the dangerous diagnosis of most marriages today that are not obviously crumbling, according to Dan Allender. We bring to marriage all the idolatrous commitments we have developed to make our world work, whether they call for peace at all costs or contemptuous confrontation on every issue. At the Intimate Marriage conference at PCPC on September 10-11, Allender addressed the assault on marriage today in passionate, frank, and humorous teaching that laid bare the sin that brings everything from boredom to contempt to dismissal to the relationships of husbands and wives.

For the several hundred in attendance, Allender named two issues that are core to the problem: 1) the struggle with lust, which is desire gone idolatrous, a consumerism that becomes such a hunger for more that when we don’t get what we want, we will make someone pay. Such lust he calls murder­—it kills the one who is made to pay and kills any intimacy in a relationship. And 2) the depth of our illusions, which will never bring joy and will destroy relationships, because intimacy can thrive only in the soil of truth.

The evil one delights at the destruction of a marriage or even its assessment as “it is what it is.” Such hopelessness denies the essense of the gospel of Jesus Christ—His sacrificial death and glorious resurrection. Settling for detachment, disassociation, distance, or tuning out is the evil one’s goal­—taking away your life while letting you live.

Allender asserts that the goal of marriage is the glory of one’s spouse. He challenged listeners to ask themselves if they were more committed to their marriage, the institution and it’s survival, or one’s actual spouse. Fear for the survival of one’s marriage becomes the ground for the evil one to work. And he dismissed the notion that marriage is all about compromise. It is about glory—about opening the door for spouses to be more like Jesus—about their beauty and substance. Seeking such glory means asking the hard questions, uncovering the heartache, hearing the pain, and offering Spirit-led responses that bring healing.

Bringing glory to the everyday
So what does such a marriage look like in practical terms? Allender advises couples to assess three areas of life together: calendars, checkbooks, and words. The average family dinner 90 years ago took 90 minutes. Today the average is 8 minutes. Sacred appointments of time together on the calendar are a must. How is money spent? For diversions, antidotes to boredom, escapes, or opportunities for intimacy and shared goals? How are words used? With contempt? Where there is contempt, there is death in a relationship. The evil one is the accuser, and contempt is his tool of destruction, be it an eye roll, sneer, or open attack.

“Sex is about God,” Allender asserted to a startled audience. “Food and sex are all about God and redemption.” The Bible is all about celebration, and the evil one would ruin it all. Evil strikes anyone who would be used by God. Allender believes no one escapes sexual harm in this culture, and shame brings death to true intimacy in many relationships. Yet the kindness of God is most evident to us in our deepest brokenness, and it leads to repentance. Jesus invites us to rest in His heart in safety and commitment. Such kindness to each other brings questions of real care and allows that rest, safety, and commitment in marriage. God’s intention is for sex not to work in marriage unless it is characterized by sacrifice and blessing.

The curse of Genesis 3:16 following the fall of Adam and Eve is the starting point for demystifying the struggle for oneness in marriage. Allender explained that the curse of pain in childbirth for women can be seen as a curse on all relationships she gives birth to. They will all be broken, and a man cannot meet her need for relationship, thus the result for women is the great pain of loneliness. She often fills her need with busyness—from overparenting to shopping to redecorating—since her man can’t handle her and illusions of joy must be found elsewhere.

Man’s curse is sweat and thorns as he digs to produce his “fruit.” But his fruit is never enough, and it never lasts. Futility rules his heart, and his response to feeling he is never enough is to seek control of his world through wealth and power. Enough money or power means he can contract out whatever he doesn’t want to do and avoid the world’s thorns, yet his money cannot fix a fallen world or insulate him from it. Then he may ask, “Why bother?” and turn to a life of indulgence, diversion, illusion, and waste.

Practicing the reality and applying the hope of the resurrection
Becoming one in marriage means facing the cause of the chasm between spouses, embracing the curse and its consequences, then finding redemption together in prayer and confession—not just confession of sin, but of desires, dreams, and life stories that bring truth, raw and unvarnished, to a relationship. Any other kind of relationship denies the cross and resurrection of Christ. It denies death and the hope we have because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Allender challenged his audience with the question, “What are you doing because of the resurrection?” Where does such hope drive you beyond despair, illusions, idol worship, and saying, “It is what it is?” Confession is more than “I sinned.” It is “I want more because of the resurrection.”

Confession and prayer together leads to godly sorrow, where our failures and the failures of others bring us in desperation to need and know the kindness of God and His delight in us. Allender used the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate God’s delight in His children. The prodigal’s father waited on his son’s return, anticipating it with hope. He ran to his son on seeing him in the distance, tucking his robe into his belt, not caring such behavior was demeaning in that culture. He wept as he embraced his son, not accusing him by asking what in the world he had been thinking to leave in the first place. Then the father partied! He rejoiced and invited the neighborhood. God waits on us. He runs to embrace us and weeps at our return. Then He invites us to a party. Allender asked, “Have you ever felt the arms of God around you as He weeps for joy over you?” What in particular does He delight in over you?

Becoming one also requires forgiveness, which can’t be given unless it is already received. Offering the character of God to one another means cancelling all debts, as Christ has done for us, and doing good by conquering evil. Love is warfare! Loving one’s spouse means doing battle with evil wherever it is in residence—in the culture, the family, or one’s own heart. Fight evil for each other.

Allender knows we all have stories; some relate great harm in the past. But stories of harm, exposed to the kindness of God, become redemptive stories of hope. Believing in the resurrection gives birth to our callings on earth, and knowing that calling brings blessing on the harm brought to us. God uses the brokenness of our past to bless the world today. Evil is defeated. Life has been brought from death. The gospel of Jesus Christ makes us true men and women, and no place is a more fertile ground for such transformation than marriage. Is your marriage blessing the world as it transforms you into the likeness of Christ?

If you would like to know more about topics covered in the conference or find help for your marriage, contact Betty, [email protected] or 214-224-2683.