Marriage: All About Abiding

ALL ABOUT ABIDING

God designed us only for relationship. All of creation God orchestrated to reveal His majesty, and He allows us to experience our needs before He meets our needs. Adam had to stand alone—having just watched every animal find a perfect mate—before God gave him Eve [Genesis 2:22]. Mankind had to fail miserably in his attempt at independence before God gave him a Savior [Psalm 70:5]. He reveals our God-shaped vacuum before He fills it. We have certainly tried everything else we could think of and then some [Ecclesiastes 4:4] but in the end, we find that only God Himself satisfies [Psalm 107:9].

Relationships without Him are incomplete. You may have noticed that your mate is not perfect, and your mate may have noticed the same about you! But God could not let you find your fullness in another person because you would miss out on Him. However tempted we may be to see our marriage as the answer to our deepest needs (and indeed, God wants to meet our needs through our marriages) it is God, not our spouse, who fills us. In this book, we will look at turning our eyes from our spouses to God, so that we can be freed to love fully. Imagine a photo that had been left outside and is now full of holes. If you could lay that damaged image over its perfect original, its wholeness would be revealed.

All our earthly relationships (marriage, parenting, friendships) are full of holes and are complete only when we overlay them on Christ. Houses, jobs, bank accounts, food, friends, parents, children, spouses are all incomplete images, all inadequate to meet our needs, all meant to be overlaid on Christ to become complete. Is there enough money, sex, drugs, booze, power, or shopping to fill our God-shaped vacuum? No [Ecclesiastes 2:11]. Without Him, nothing satisfies. Just observe how people strive. But overlaid on Him, our lives satisfy because His perfect image shines through… and we see Him shining through only when we look to Him.

God completes the picture for any of our needs—even with no other earthly image to lay over it. He’s the parent for the orphan, a shelter for the homeless, He meets are needs not with physical provision alone (or else riches would satisfy), but only when juxtaposed over Him. He who is wholly sufficient completes us. That is how we realize our need for Him.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12