Marriage Begins with God, Not Us
As I ponder the idea that marriage was God’s idea, I find myself in awe of who He is.
God loved us so much that He didn’t want us to be alone, even though we have Him. When God created Adam, He knew He could provide everything Adam needed. He knew Adam had Him. And yet, God also knew Adam needed someone to do life with. Someone to grow with, work alongside, laugh with, struggle with, and share the beauty of what God had created.
In Genesis 2:18, God says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” So, God created Eve and brought her to Adam. Marriage wasn't something humanity came up with. It was God's design from the very beginning.
And I think there is something really beautiful about that.
Marriage was created to be more than simply two people choosing each other. It was created to be a relationship where a husband and wife live under God’s authority, reflect His image, and walk through life together.
But for many years of my marriage, my husband and I didn't really live as husband and wife.
We lived more like roommates.
We shared a home. We went to work. We took care of responsibilities. We did what needed to be done. We had the wedding. We signed the marriage license. But when I look back, I can see that we were living more under a contract than in covenant.
And the hard part is that we both followed Jesus.
We believed in Him, but we weren't really living like it when it came to our marriage.
We were operating out of what the world told us was important. Work. Friends. Family. Our own desires. Our own expectations. Slowly, those things became more important than our relationship with God and, ultimately, our relationship with each other.
We weren't waking up every morning thinking, How can I make my marriage fall apart today? We were simply living life the way we thought made sense.
And eventually, that caught up with us.
About seven years into our marriage, we reached a breaking point. We had to make a decision. Were we going to continue living the way we had been living, or were we going to surrender our marriage to God and begin learning how to live in His design?
By God's grace, and through the work of the Holy Spirit in both of us, we chose to stay.
But staying married wasn't enough.
We had to learn how to actually be married.
That began with each of us looking at our own relationship with God. We had to stop looking at what the other person needed to change and start asking God what He wanted to change in us.
And as we began drawing closer to God, we began drawing closer to each other.
I remember a picture that was shared with us in counseling. It was a triangle. God was at the top, the husband was at one bottom corner, and the wife was at the other.
The picture was simple, but it stuck with me.
The closer the husband and wife move toward God, the closer they move toward one another.
It doesn't mean marriage becomes easy. It doesn't mean we stop disagreeing or hurting each other. It doesn't mean we always get it right.
It means we're no longer asking our spouse to be what only God can be.
Our spouse was never meant to be our identity, our source of worth, our savior, or the person responsible for making us whole. That's God's place.
But God did give us one another.
He gave us someone to walk beside us. Someone to know us deeply. Someone to challenge us and encourage us. Someone to forgive and be forgiven by. Someone to grow with as we become more like Jesus.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 says, “And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
When I look back at our marriage, I can see how far we were from God's design, even while believing in God. And I can also see how faithful He was to meet us there.
So maybe the question isn't simply, how is my marriage doing?
Maybe the deeper question is: Is God actually at the center of my marriage, or have my spouse and I simply built a life together and asked God to bless it?
Are we each moving toward Him?
Are we surrendering our own pride, expectations, and desires to Him?
Are we allowing God to shape the way we love, forgive, communicate, serve, and care for one another?
Because marriage begins with God, not us.
And maybe the invitation for all of us is to stop asking, how can I get my spouse to change? and start asking, “God, what do You want to change in me?”
That's where our marriage began to change.
Not when my husband changed.
Not when I finally got everything right.
But when we both began turning our hearts back toward the One who created marriage in the first place.
Our marriage began with God long before it began with us.
And I want to keep learning what it looks like to live it that way.
If this encouraged you, check out more articles from our Flatirons Spiritual Formation Team for practical tools, encouragement, and ways to grow in your faith and leadership. Click here.