He Gave Up Himself for Her

I am not married. I feel a need to make this declaration, although I doubt it has much bearing on my perspective. I can’t wait for the man who will marry me. I simply can’t wait.

As a single woman however, I am surprised that more people are not challenging my position on marriage. Instead, I have received praises and nods of agreement. I think my position on marriage is pretty clear and you can read more about that in my new book The Colorful Path. But in summary, I believe marriage is a beautiful institution created by God, it is the ultimate demonstration of love and it is not for everyone!

People usually don’t like that last part. But that is the truth of it. The bible never said thou shalt get married. While God did say be fruitful and multiply, we must apply something called wisdom as this instruction does not necessarily apply to every single person or every single circumstances or seasons of a person’s life. Marriage may not be for a person at the time most people think that they should get married. A person may have gotten married and discovered they are better of being single. Or a person may get married and end up making the life of their partner a living hell. It is clearly better for such an individual to be single, at least until they learn how to live in marriage.

I once wrote in a previous post that love is the only reason that makes marriage worth it. But of course, I am not referring to the love that is merely a feeling, it is so much more than that. It is sacrificial.

This kind of love is described in the bible as “giving yourself up”. The bible uses the relationship between Christ and the church to describe what marriage ought to be. Christ is said to love the church so much so that He “gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). This is the level of expectation that is placed on marriage. If you haven’t found the person you are willing to give yourself up for, then please don’t get married!

 A marriage that doesn’t involve giving up one’s self is not worth it. Christ gave Himself up for the church. While no one is asking us to literally die for the person we love as Christ did, we have to imbibe this same mindset in our approach to marriage.

Unfortunately, many of us haven’t quite inculcated this idea into our thinking. Which is why many marriages are the mess they are today. Marriage is that one decision you make that every other thing becomes secondary. We must give up the I for us!

We live in a world that is all about self and ego. This presents a major challenge because marriage is not about you or me, it is about us. Me, Myself and I, is the ultimate antithesis of marriage. Yet we are trying to make marriage work under self centered ideologies. It can’t work! There’s no room for self in marriage, it’s all about us.

The arithmetic for marriage is different. In mathematics, 1 + 1 = 2. In marriage, 1 + 1 = 1. We will have more fulfilling relationships if we wrap our minds around this.

The Colorful Path was my attempt to help salvage the mess many marriages have become in this generation by equipping young single folks with knowledge before they embark on that journey. As I stated in the book, we need so much more than that. But it’s a good place to start from.

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