Two years ago, one of the world's most famed love story writers Nicolas Sparks and his wife filed for divorce, shaking the romance novel industry to the core. Someone even wrote a tweet saying, "If Nicholas Sparks is divorcing his wife there's no hope for any of us."
How can someone who has mastered the craft of romance novel writing fall apart in his own love story? If there's one thing that we can learn from Sparks' personal tear-jerker gone stale is that romance is not enough to keep a marriage in place.
So what then can keep a marriage together if not romance or intimacy?
Knowing how marriage works and how we make it work calls for a need to understand the Inventor's vision for it. If you want to know the best way to use and care for an iPhone, better ask Apple, right? It's no different for marriage. We are to approach the creator and origin of marriage, which is God Himself.
What is God's vision for marriage? In Matthew 19:6, Jesus shares, "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
To be one flesh-marriage demands nothing less from two people who want to walk in God's way of a biblical union.
God's vision was so intense that the disciples responded in hopelessness, saying, "If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry" (Matthew 19:10). Their reaction sounded pretty similar to that of people when Nicolas Sparks gave up on his marriage.
But if there's one thing we can learn about the seemingly impossible vision for marriage, it's that we cannot build a marriage on our own. If it was just about being romantic, intimate, meeting needs and performing roles, then so many marriages that have failed today would still be there. But they're not.
The key lies in Jesus' vision for marriage: "What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate."
What makes a marriage work is understanding that it is God who brings and keeps two people together.
We cannot rely on our own strength to save, build or keep our marriages. Christ is the foundation of everything including our marriage. As we put Jesus at the centre of our motive, plans and desires, He will empower us to become the husband or wife that God calls us to be.
Psalm 127:1 reminds us, "Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain."
We are to invite God to build our marriages instead of us struggling to build it ourselves.
God understands marriage, understands us, and understands our spouse. Thus it only makes sense that we rely on Him to build our marriages, not our own efforts to remain romantic and intimate. We should allow ourselves first to experience His intimacy and to let our marriage intimacy become an extension of that.
