Marriage as House Building

I just learned that a couple from a church I once pastored recently divorced. This couple was amazing together; of all the couples I've known they would have been near the bottom of my list of marriages that might not make it. What makes a good marriage? Why do some flourish while others don't survive? Henri Nouwen once wrote that marriage is not a lifelong attraction of two individuals to each other, but a call for two people to witness together to God's love. The basis of marriage, Nouwen claims, is not mutual affection, or feelings, or the emotions and passion that we normally associate with love. Instead it is a vocation - a calling - to build together a house for God in this world.

When I think of all the great marriages I've been around, that's mainly what I see. Most of the folks in those marriages wouldn't explain their marriages that way, but that's exactly what they are. Like much of life, living on the surface of things, using language which limits what we are trying to describe, and, most importantly, our finite understanding of the world around us distorts much of what is really there. Some people will tell you their marriage is based on the great friendship they have with their spouse. Others say it's being there for the kids that makes their marriage "work." But in reality God is at the center of it all. It's God that the couple is, knowingly or not, building a house for in the world, that makes their marriage so great.

The next time you look across the breakfast table at your spouse keep that in mind. It's a high privilege and a holy calling you're participating in; make the most of it every day.