It’s happened before.
I hear about a friend whose marriage is rough. I understand the swirling strain the mind
goes through, trying to solve problems.
Is there a way out? I understand
the grief when a thing isn’t what it should be.
It may be the only way to stay sane, to hold tight to the fact that God’s
design is better than this. Marriage is
good. God designed it to be good. He designed it to be better than what anyone
experiences. And though He isn’t out of
control, what we do and experience falls short of the glories God designed. What we do and experience, though, can still
bring Him glory.
I digress. Is there a
way out? If God didn’t intend it to be
this way, must I still live in it? God’s
design for humanity is health, but we get sick; we feel pain. Must we still live it?
God’s design for fatherhood is to be one who speaks to his
children, teaching them the way they should go, demonstrating love and
patience. Fathers chasten their children so that they will learn to be good,
God-fearing, and productive. But if a man
fathers a child and then walks away, is he still a father? Our society is all in a rush, with
step-parents and father-figures, to give the title of father to those who come
closest to fulfilling the design for that role.
I’m not sure I disagree with an analogous application of the term “father”
to someone who is doing the work of a father.
What concerns me is when we say that the man who abandoned his family is
not a father. The thing that, in fact,
makes a man a father, is his biological participation in bringing a child into
the world. Are we letting biological
fathers off the hook by telling them that unless they act like fathers, they
aren’t fathers (and, thence, they don’t have the responsibilities of
fathers)? Perhaps a more difficult
question is whether God means for “Honor your father and mother” to apply even
to fathers (or mothers) who are not living up to the ideals.
So I’ve been pondering the difference between what is
essential to a thing, and what makes a thing “good”. A marriage is one man and one woman
covenanting and becoming one flesh for this life. A good marriage is more. A good marriage has good communication, good
teamwork, is productive and pleasurable.
A good marriage involves each helping the other become closer to
God. A good marriage is a testimony of
love to the world. Do God’s expectations
for marriage only apply to healthy, thriving ones? If one spouse isn’t living up to the ideals
of a “good” marriage, is the other spouse free to claim this isn’t going to
work out? Or does “What God has brought
together, let no man separate” apply even to marriages that just meet the bare
bones definition of a marriage? (And
what are the bare bones of things, in God’s eyes – as He has revealed them to
us?)
It’s a hard road, but I believe that we are called not to
escape the things and people who are broken, but to love them and to mourn over
their/our brokenness. I believe we are to
hope for the good, even when it looks impossible. I believe that when we read the Bible, we
must do so submitting to God’s revelation for our understanding of the institutions
God instructs us about. A father begets
a child. Those children are commanded to relate to their father with obedience
and honor. Such a father is commanded to
treat his children in certain ways. Marriage
is a thing, even if it is a different thing from what we imagined or hoped for
when we started it. Being a Christian is
a thing, with responsibilities that we don’t escape by failing to live up to
them. Being a friend is a thing that I’m
wrestling with right now, trying to understand what God teaches are the
bare-bones essentials of friendship and also what He delights for it to
be. Church is a thing. Gender is a thing. How well we live these things doesn’t change
what they are.
To God be all glory.
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