Theology & Marriage

Recently, I retweeted @benreed: "The way you love your spouse reveals your theology much more clearly than a thousand sermons.”


My wife, who occasionally likes to pin me down in things I say, asked me: "Okay, so what theology does our marriage communicate?" As near as I can recall, here's how I responded.


Marriage is where God takes two separate people and uses them to grow & shape each other to serve him better. And they love each other & hurt each other & fail & forgive & heal each other; God works through them, their failures and victories, to make his power & presence more clearly manifest in their lives.


Just like parents are surrogates for God in the lives of their children, so loving & knowing your husband or wife teaches you how to know & love God, and to live in communion with him.


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Blue

(Ahem) I mean, "feeling troubled in my spirit." I'm a Christian. A highly educated Christian; I get to use those letters after my name from time to time, p-h-d.  Highly educated Christians don't get blue, we become "troubled in our spirits."

So I'm blue. Why?  

It's not just that I miss my wife, or that my children have already grown & gone off on their own (often without me noticing.) It's not just that I wrestle with guilt & shame, & need constant reminding that God's grace is for me. 

It's not just the diabetes (which I insist on pronouncing "diabeetus," just to annoy my children), or the sense of a loss of control over my life that comes with it. It's not just my mom's cancer, & the dread and fear I feel when I think about it. 

It's not just my (frequently) prayerful worry over the College, and my students & the choices they're facing, and how DESPERATELY I want Dallas Christian College to flourish & be faithful. It's not just how much I fear messing up & failing the school by making a poor decision or missing a detail. It's not just that I envy the gifts & successes of others--but I DO. I'm good at coveting my brother's ministry. 

It's not just that football season is so far away. 

It's not just that I feel dislocated & out of place, an alien in my own skin, a stranger to myself. 

It's not just my sadness at what Rick Warren & his family are going through. 

It's all this stuff, and none of it, and everything else beside.