Of all the questions I get all the time as a Couples Pastor it is always about what a healthy marriage looks like. Most people want a healthy marriage deep down. No one marries thinking that it would really help build their character to have a terrible marriage that challenges them on a daily basis. So what does a healthy marriage look like? What types of things should I have in place if I am going to be able to say my marriage is healthy?
Like anything else it is probably a good idea to go to the inventor of marriage to figure out what he intended for this thing in the first place. I know of no better description of a healthy marriage than what is described in Ephesians 5:21-33:
And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word.He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, "A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one."This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
In this passage Paul compares marriage to Christ's relationship with the church. If Paul can make this comparison it would stand to reason that some of what makes health church in its relationship to Christ would also make a healthy marriage. If you look at most churches they focus on fulfilling the Great Commandment and Great Commission that Jesus gave us. From those two calls that Jesus gave every follower of his we have five areas of focus or purposes for our lives: Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry, and Mission.
Now it is obvious that these five things do not apply to marriage directly. But if we take these five things as we see them in this passage we have five components of a healthy marriage. Worship applied to a marriage becomes Honor, I honor my spouse as an act of worship to Christ. Fellowship applied to a marriage becomes Relational Intimacy. This includes all of the things we naturally think about when it comes to a healthy marriage like communication, handling conflict, romance, sex, etc. Discipleship applied to marriage becomes Spiritual Intimacy. This is the process of helping each other to grow spiritually and become spiritual partners together to become more like Christ. Ministry applied to marriage becomes Partnership which is learning how to take each person's uniqueness and bring it together so that we are better together and learn to help one another and help others together. Finally, Mission applied to a marriage becomes Message and for any follower of Christ it is important to understand that our marriages say something about the Gospel to the world around us. When people look at your marriage do they have hope and want to know more about your God? Or do they feel despair and figure when your God can fix your marriage then maybe they will be interested?
Now health in a marriage involves balancing these five concept in your relationship. So when you look at your marriage are these five things present in your marriage? Or are there areas that you are lacking? If they are present are they healthy? Or, do you need to do some more work on some areas? Our Married Life Pathway at Saddleback Church is designed to help give you the knowledge and tools to help you work these five things into your marriage.
