"I remember years ago a young person came to me and they said, "I want to be a missionary in China.”
And I said, "Why?”
And they said, "Well, I love the Chinese. I love the Chinese. I just think of the Chinese all the time.”
And I looked at them and I said, "Do you know why you love the Chinese?”
And they said, "No, why.”
I said, "Because you don’t know any Chinese.”
The point is, is this, not that the Chinese people are not wonderful people. It is just that it is so easy to love someone who is so far away and so difficult to love someone, even the person most dear to you, because they are so close.
Sometimes we hear we desperately need God in preaching and in the ministry and that is very, very true. But I have not needed God so much in the ministry as I have needed him in marriage.
. . .I found out after just a few weeks of marriage that I was not as spiritual as I thought I was as a single man, that I was not as selfless, I was not as kind, I was not many of the things that I believed myself to be because it was marriage that truly tested the caliber of my character. And I found myself wanting and I found myself needing grace like never before in my life. And until this day (my wife and I will celebrate our anniversary in two days) and until this day I need more grace now than I needed then simply because I am wiser to my need. . .
So many times young people will come to me and they will say, you know, a young man will say, "I desire to marry this girl.”
And I will say, "Why?”
And he will say, "Well, I love to be with her and she is beautiful and when I am with her we feel so good and it just meets so many needs in my life and there is just when she is around, my life is so much more endearing.”
And I will always ask him this question, "Well, then, what you are telling me is you want to marry this girl because she meets all your selfish self centered needs and desires?”
The young man will always say, "No, that is not what I mean.”
And I’ll always say, "But that is what you said. You want to be with her because she is beautiful. Young man, what happens when she is no longer beautiful? What happens when someone more beautiful comes across your path?”
Or, "We can really talk and that is why we want to be together?”
What happens when you can’t really talk?
"We feel so good together.”
What happens when those feelings for a season are gone?
You see, your marriage must be based upon this one thing. God has called me to lay down my life for this woman. If she responds in kind praise the Lord. If she does not respond in kind, praise the Lord because I am not in this for me. And in a sense I am not even in this for her. But I am in this for God.
. . .There is another sense, sister, that you have been called to do the same. You can also make this man into something that at this moment he is not. You can make him hard and bitter, tried and tired or you can make him something that we would all want him to be. But the tools of your trade are not a hammer and they are most certainly not a tongue. They are reflecting the beauty of Christ, the humble submissiveness of Christ, of knowing this, that if you fight for you God will not fight for thee. If you give yourself as a handmaiden to God and respond as God would have you respond, then God will fight for you and change this man.
. . . What is the real purpose of marriage? The real purpose of marriage is the same purpose shared by every other thing that occurs on this planet. The real purpose of marriage is that you both be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
. . .We are conditional. And that is the one thing that God will seek to destroy in both of you, conditions, conditions. He has sovereignly given you a woman that is strong in all the areas where she must be strong so that you are not tempted beyond what you can bear. He has given you a husband who will be strong in all the areas where he must be strong so that you are not tempted beyond what you can bear, sister. But God has also given you a woman and he himself orchestrated her weaknesses and they will be weaknesses in her life that will most rub you the wrong way. And he has given you a man who has weaknesses orchestrated, ordained. In his mysterious sovereignty he has given you a man who is weak in the areas where maybe you will want him to be most strong.
Basically, this: He has given to you each other and neither of you meet all the conditions. And the purpose of that is not to give you bliss on earth, but to make your love unconditional, that you will love her and care for her when she does not meet the condition. And you will love him and care for him when he does not meet the conditions. And the reason for that is this. You are not in it for the individual. You are not in it for each other. You are in it for the glory of God and becoming every thing, everything that he would want you to be.
And he could have given you an easier woman. Sister, trust me. He could have given you an easier man. He did not give you someone compatible with you because he loves you too much. Because he is so much better than you and his gifts are so much greater than the ones you would even give yourself. You would want a life of ease and perfect compatibility. He is not going to give you that because that never produces godliness, true piety or conformity to the image of Jesus Christ.
I don’t have to be a prophet or the son of a prophet to tell you that there are going to be beautiful times and there are going to be times that are very trying. And I don’t have to be the prophet or the son of a prophet to tell you that if you live through it you are going to look back in your old age and you are going to bless God more for the times of tension than the times of compatibility because you are going to see that it was through that you were conformed to the image of Christ and gained for yourself a greater weight of eternal glory."