God uses marriage to direct us towards Himself. To evaluate our personal success in a marriage we must not look to see if our needs are being met, but we must ask ourselves, "Am I demonstrating the image and character of Jesus Christ?." We determine our success by how much we are becoming like Christ -- loving and honoring our spouse according to the specific roles God has laid out for us in the Scriptures. Far wiser than us, God knows that as we grow into the image of Jesus, our greatest needs are met.
Romans 12: 2 'Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will'.
Sadly, most of us have been under that false notion
that God means for our mate to meet all of our romantic and emotional needs. We
marry, fully intending to have our spouse be all that we ever wanted in a mate.
Shortly after the wedding though, we begin to think that our new partner has a
lot of changing to do. In fact, it appears they are far from being able to
fully meet our needs. Instead of being fully committed to our idea of what a
marriage is all about, we entered in with our own ideas of what marriage is to
be.
God's primary intention for
marriage is not what most of us imagine it to be. He has not designed marriage
as a place where we can finally try to get our needs met. He has created it as
something much better -- something far more grand than that. God intends to use
marriage to accomplish a very important goal -- one that is His primary goal
for all Christians. God's primary purpose for marriage is to use it to help
shape us into the image of His Son. If we miss out on this we are doomed to a life
of anxiety and frustration.
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