Why Did I Marry You?

                                
Have you ever looked at your spouse in wonderment as to why you ever married them?  Okay, admit it.  I believe we all have occasional moments of doubt.  It is our nature. The good news is that the more you work at improving your relationship, the less those moments arise. 

Let’s face it, it is difficult living with other people, especially those of the opposite sex. There will be issues no matter whom you live with.  Magnify that by love and marriage, and struggles are inevitable.

Marriage takes continuous work.  I Corinthian 7:1 tells us, “It is good for a man not to marry.”   Hmmm.  Marriage does comes with its own mountain of problems.  Paul was much more successful at fulfilling God’s plan for him because he could focus every aspect of his life on it.  He had no wife to distract him, and that is why he hands out this advice.

That does not mean we shouldn’t get married.  I Corinthians goes on to say, “But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.”  Verse 9 says,
“Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.”

Maybe if society had kept sex within the confines of marriage, our world would not be in such a mess.  Sex is a casual sport now, and marriage has lost its importance because of our careless attitude towards it.  There is a reason Paul tells us to marry instead of burn with passion.  That passion outside of marriage is destroying marriage and the family.

We have to keep the passion in our marriage to keep our marriage alive.  It is too easy to throw it away, and so must come the commitment to stay married “until death do us part.” 

I recently watched a show where a couple was having some problems.  He said to her, “This isn’t working, is it?”  She replied, “No, it’s not.  I guess we should call it quits.”  That was it.  They didn’t feel as though they loved each other anymore and it wasn’t working.  Time to get a divorce.  Not one word about working it out. That seems to be the attitude in many marriages today.

Although we will have days of wondering why, we have to overlook them and continue to fight for our marriage. Those moments will pass.  We have to stay committed, no matter what.  Only then will God be able to bless us with the marriage we truly desire to share with our spouse.  It comes with a price, but the rewards are priceless.