Having read your post jimp I can’t help but be struck by my own experience of getting married and how completely opposite in character it was. I respect you for sharing as you have done. What I now share should in no way diminish your testimony and the wisdom it holds for some. In your experience it was clearly so. Continuing in prayer for your former wife is really gracious.
Having just been released from prison I wasn’t exactly the ideal candidate for anyone. Yet I fell in love and so decided to marry having asked Helen and then her father. My pastor at the time had said to me when I arrived out of the blue to his flock that I wasn’t to ask any of the sisters out for at least six months. I agreed without any hesitation. Six weeks later I realised that I was attracted to Helen and so I asked another sister for advice. She said that I should ask Helen to the cinema and take things steady. I did and Helen said she would think about it. Within a few weeks of asking, my conviction that Helen was to be my wife was so strong that I was compelled to actually skip the pictures and ask her to marry me. I prayed with a great burden to be accurate before God and so I asked the Father in Heaven if I could marry his daughter. To my complete surprise the Father said to me that I would have to ask Helen and if she said yes then I could marry her. I was also warned that if Helen said yes, I would be held accountable for her. I asked Helen and she agreed. The pastor heard about this and told me that I wasn’t to marry for at least a year. I agreed. However I came under another strong conviction that I ought to marry and so having asked Helen’s father we married in her family church.
I wrote a letter to the pastor and advised him that when we saw him again we would be married. On the day we arrived back to the church we came into the end of the meeting. To my horror I heard the pastor condemning my marriage and telling the other young people to take warning. As he came down the central corridor of the church I fixed him with a look and asked him by what authority he had condemned my marriage. He replied that he had seen this sort of thing before and that the marriage had lasted for just two years. What my pastor didn’t know, was that Helen and I were completely obedient to the cross. Whilst we were courting I had looked at Helen and said to her “the only thing which is between us is Christ”.
The pastor had taken a similar position with another brother and sister. He had been saved in prison, she was a school teacher and lovely in every way. They followed the pastor’s advice to the letter. It was this sister I sought advice from regarding Helen. Some years later this sister discovered that her husband was having an affair. Needless to say she was devastated. They reconciled and she became pregnant with their first born son. The baby died just a few days after birth and their marriage completely collapsed. He went back to his unfaithfulness. Helen fell pregnant within seven days of our marriage. On the day we received official confirmation of this our land lady came to us and said that if ever we were to have a baby we were to leave. Imagine how I felt knowing Helen was pregnant. We left.
There is a great deal more to this than these few details. But I think that what I understood at the time and what I have believed ever since is that marriage is between a man and a woman and not between a pastor a man and a woman. Authority in marriage is the only certain reality which will keep a marriage despite every kind of attack. The obedience should be firstly in the man submitting to the woman’s father in asking with a sincere asking and in the woman submitting to her husband with a sincere submission. Every thread of understanding I have in life which is wholesome and reasonable has come from being married to a woman who is sound in her faith and sound in her attitude as well. I know without any shadow of doubt that I am unworthy of her. Yet her attitude and faithfulness has kept me. I on the other hand have exercised authority over my family to keep them from the world and from the evil one.
Young believers should be taught the principles of authority and submission in the area which will really make the difference. No pastor, no matter how he is, can keep a marriage if those who are married do not know how to keep themselves. By submitting to a pastor instead of directly to God and the heads of households, a marriage may be weakened from the very outset because the man and the woman will set their sight in the wrong direction. Even if there are no heads of households to submit to in asking, those entering into marriage should look to heaven and to the Father, and not to the church. Christ the head of the man, and the man the head of the woman. It has been rejected across much of the world. The Lord knows.
