For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This mystery is profound, but I am talking about Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:31,32
The summer I met my wife, Susan, I was working as part of a little theater company in my hometown of Montreat, NC. We did several plays that summer. Every Saturday night we staged a fairly elaborate production of The Sound of Music in the three-thousand-seat Anderson Auditorium, complete with Broadway style backdrops and a large cast and crew.
Tuesday through Friday, we did two productions in a much smaller theater. The season opened with a disastrous attempt at presenting The Odd Couple. I was Murray the cop. The two leads, Oscar and Felix, had not learned their lines. They came on stage in costume and were soon at a loss for what to say or do, apparently expecting to improvise. Because they had not learned their parts, those of us with lesser roles were unable to follow.
When a telephone rang off-stage signaling my departure, I said, as was scripted, “I have to go now.” Oscar grabbed my arm and pleaded, “Wait Murray! Please, don’t go.”
But it was my exit, and if I had stayed on stage, I could have done nothing to save the show. We were supposed to be performing Neil Simon’s brilliant Broadway hit, not improvisational comedy. Twenty minutes after the curtain went up, the producer/director took the stage, making apologies and offering refunds at the door.
Two weeks later, we opened a whole new show, Kiss and Tell, with new lead actors. Everyone in the production company was eager for this show to be a success, but determination to succeed was not enough. All of the characters had to learn their parts and stick to the script!
In our society, Oscar and Felix would not be such an odd couple. Unfortunately, many couples enter marriage as unprepared as Oscar and Felix were for the show. The results are tragic, not comedic. Children growing up in a family where Mom or Dad do not know their parts and cannot play their roles suffer enormous trauma. There is nothing the children can do to rescue the marriage or save the family, but unlike our little theater company, there is no refund available at the door. Instead, another generation enters marriage unprepared. They may be able to dress the part, but because they have never seen the story unfold the way it was written, they are often unaware that there is a plan.
It would be foolish for someone, whose only experience with his work was the fiasco that summer, to conclude that Neil Simon is a poor writer. Yet, this is exactly what many people are doing when it comes to marriage: “A report released by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University found ‘a substantial weakening of the institution of marriage’ in America. The researchers said the U.S. marriage rate has never been lower, births to unmarried women have skyrocketed, the divorce rate remains high and Americans’ marriages are less happy than in the past.”
People whose experience of marriage and family has been painful are understandably reluctant to commit to a lifetime of misery. Many assume that either there is no plan or the parts were poorly written. But, the problem is not with the script; it is with those who didn’t learn their parts.
God designed marriage to reflect the glory of His grace and love. He also designed it for our pleasure. Marriage was intended by God to be a blessing, not a burden, a joyous context for freedom, not a prison. As we learn to honor God in our marriage, we discover the pleasure He intends.
Ironically, if we pursue our pleasure instead of His glory, we will obtain neither. Pleasure apart from the will of God is fleeting. The pleasure of God is joy inexpressible and full of glory. Marriage is one of the surest places to discover the truth of Jesus’ words: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
The first reason why most couples fail to experience marriage as the exciting joyous relationship God designed is because they never even dream it is possible. In order to have the courage to try marriage the way God intends, you must have hope. You must believe his plan is better than the painful cycle of broken promises that has left generations of hurting people.
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