A Prayer for our Anniversary
Sep 6 2022 - Eric Buresh
My wife and I are coming up on our anniversary. To get you in the ballpark, we have been married to each other for a larger portion of our lives than the portion we have not been married to each other. It’s hard to grasp. I still feel like a kid sometimes. Time moves so quickly.
When you reach a certain anniversary, you start occasionally getting questions like, “How do you guys make it work?” “How do you stay in love with each other?” “What do you think are the most important things to do for a successful marriage?” “What’s your secret?” All good questions as the younger look to the older for wisdom. Everyone rightfully wants to learn something that might help out. It reminds me of a news story that caught my attention where the interviewer asked a couple of old souls who had reached 105 and 108 years the secret to their longevity. One said she’d had a glass of wine and celery covered in peanut butter every day for the last 40+ years. The other walked outside every day and drank a glass of milk before the walk and a glass of cranberry juice after the walk. Who knows if those work, but I was definitely glad they had these little joys in their lives. Such joys are a gift from God. But I digress.
My wife and I always smile when asked what we do to keep our marriage strong. I suppose the short answer is “we don’t do much.” That answer isn’t going to sell many books! But the reality is that neither of us are all that strong, and I fear we would have been overcome long ago if we relied on will power or self-discipline in practicing some series of steps or principles. By God’s grace, though, we are much better at seeing and believing. God has opened our spiritual eyes to a couple of simple truths that have changed how we see our marriage, and our faith in God’s truth has given our marriage a massive infusion of life and love and power. This is not marriage advice; it is just rock-solid truth about our marriage (and yours).
The first truth came from Mark 10. It’s probably not a great sign to be studying this passage in an upset marriage . . . but God used it. Here’s what jumped out: “Therefore, what God has joined together!” Mark 10:9. God showed us our marriage was His creation: HE JOINED US TOGETHER. God didn’t make a mistake when He joined us together. We have thought at times that we might have made a mistake, blind as we are, that certainly happens, but God doesn’t make mistakes. God can see infinitely more clearly than we can through our fallen, sin-riddled hearts. If God did it, it is good, and Jesus told us in Mark that God did it. So, we anchored to the truth that God created our marriage. In faith, we believed God’s creation was good and it was not a mistake. Seeing and believing this truth drastically changed our perspective. We knew sin had to be blinding us to see darkness in our marriage where in reality there was light. We were confused in our darkness, but we had the truth we needed to declare the darkness a lie emanating from our deceitful hearts, and we declared that truth over and over again until the darkness fled. Thanks be to God for His light!
The second truth came from Ephesians 5, which quotes from the same passage from Genesis that Jesus quoted in Mark 10: “’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, but I am speaking about Christ and the church.” Eph. 5:31-32. This truth went off like a lightning bolt in our heads: OUR MARRIAGE PICTURES JESUS AND HIS CHURCH. Just like God made us one in marriage, Christ and His Church are one. As Jesus prayed in John 17, “that all of them may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You. May they also be in Us.” Christ’s blood bought this glorious oneness: “I have given them the glory You gave Me, so that they may be one as We are one—I in them and You in Me—that they may be perfectly united, so that the world may know that You sent Me and have loved them just as You have loved Me.” John 17:22-23. Here’s the crazy truth: when God created our marriage, He pictured a perfect, glorious, unity between Christ and His Church, and He wants our marriage to reveal that picture.
My wife and I love Jesus more than anything or anyone else, including each other. He is our ultimate Treasure. We exist to bring Him glory. Because God intends our marriage to picture the perfect unity of Jesus and His Church, I will give up whatever self-worship I can to be unified in oneness with my wife. And my wife will give up whatever self-worship she can to be unified in oneness with me. Not primarily because we love each other. Earlier in our marriage we learned that way too often love of self will override love for our spouse and our unity will falter. Rather, our oneness is powered by our love for Jesus. Where there is a cross we can take up to be unified in oneness with each other in our marriage, we take up that cross with joy for the sake of Jesus’s image. We long to make Jesus look good. It is our eternal pleasure to paint as beautiful a picture of Him as we can in our marriage. This truth—that our marriage pictures Jesus and His Church—powers our marriage as we joyfully serve Christ by pursuing oneness with each other for His glory.
So, on our anniversary, we offer the same prayer we have offered many times before, “God, make Jesus look good in this marriage that you created. Lead us by Your grace to a supernatural oneness for the glory of Jesus.” Amen!