It’s Time to Figure Out The Why Of Your Marriage

There is a huge concept in the personal development world right now, that spills over into personal branding and marketing. You have to identify your “Why?”. To sum it up, you are identifying the purpose behind your efforts.

I’ve been challenged by a lovely lady that I work with to figure out my why. Rhonda pushes this to all of the people she works with. Recently, I heard Crystal over at Money Saving Mom say the same thing about how important it is to know your why.

Why Start With Why?

All of us were put on this earth with a purpose. One of the biggest challenges is to figure out what that purpose is. Seeking out and identifying your passions and reasons for doing what you do is incredibly beneficial to succeeding in life.

When you know your why, it will help you streamline everything you do in life. Keeping your purpose and passions at the forefront will guide you on how you spend your time. Remembering what your overall goal is will keep you on task and focused.

The other big reason to know your why, is to help you on those hard days. It doesn’t matter if you love what you are doing, at some point, you are going to want to give up. That is when your reasons for doing life keep you going.

What is Your Why In Your Marriage?

It is time you figured out why you are married. I’m sure when you got married to begin with, you had a pretty good idea why you wanted to be wed. Likely, you knew the exact reasons behind choosing the spouse you have.

Now is the time to re-evaluate the purpose of being married. Can I give you a little hint? If your main passions behind being married are  selfish, then your marriage will struggle to get down the rocky paths you travel.

Define Your Passions

I encourage you to spend time really defining what your passions in marriage are. When you are thinking through your reasons for being married, be very honest with your valuation. You might find that you need to develop a new vision for your marriage.

God’s Design For Marriage

Just like everything in our lives, the main purpose of our marriage is to honor God. The relationship between a husband and wife is representative of the relationship between Jesus Christ and the church.

The husband is to love his bride the way Jesus loved the church, so much so that he would give his life for her. The wife is to respect the husband as the head of the household the way that the church respects Christ.

Here is Austin’s input on this subject.

In keeping with our theme, we might ask, “Why is this so?”  Like so many other things, it is an earthly picture of a spiritual truth. When the Bible speaks of God as Father, it calls up an image and experience we (most of us) can readily relate to.  We understand a good father to be one who loves, provides, protects, teaches, etc.

Similarly, when Paul calls marriage a picture of Christ and the Church, he’s using a relationship we understand and relate to so we can glimpse the truth. Marriage is a loving, committed relationship between two parties that build each other up and sell after the welfare of the other while living out certain roles.

When dads are good dads, it strengthens our understanding of God the Father. When marriages are good marriages, it depends our understanding of Christ and the Church.

When you compare your marriage to the picture of Christ and the church, hopefully it will put some things into perspective for you.

What Are Some of the Wrong Reasons For Being Married

There are some great reasons for being married and other reasons that will leave you disappointed.

If you got married solely for these reasons: 

• To always be happy
• To never be lonely
• To find self-worth
• To have a person that will always take care of you
• To have a person who will be kind to you all of the time
• To feel like you are important
• To be sexually satisfied

…then it might be time to re-think. These are just a few of the things that come to mind that can leave you feeling dissatisfied in your marriage.

I’m not saying that a spouse won’t help you to feel happy, provide companionship, help you feel sexually satisfied.

What I am saying is that your spouse cannot always be and do everything for you. It’s not their job..

Your spouse is not God! Stop making them out to be God in your life.

There is only one person who can fulfill you, and that is Jesus Christ. Let Him be the one that sustains you and take that pressure off of your spouse.

They are not always going to make you happy, provide sexual satisfaction, help you feel important…and so on. If you got married so that you could have your needs met by another person, where does that leave you when they won’t or can’t do what you need?

Then Why Get Married?

Ok, so if those more self focused reasons shouldn’t be your why, then what should be? Here are a few things you might consider for your marriage:

• To honor God
• To show unconditional love and grace to another person
• To invest in someone in a way that no one else can
• To be an example to others of the relationship between Christ and the church

Take your focus of yourself in marriage and put it on God. When you do that, you will find that your why is more about the others then yourself.

Get Passionate About Filling Your Role in Marriage

A good place to start when it comes to determining your why in marriage, is to get serious about your roles in the relationship. If the husband focuses his energy and attention on being the godly man that he is supposed to be and the wife focuses on becoming the woman of God she is to be, then the marriage honors God.

I hope that you will take time to really figure out your reasons for being married. After you do, I hope that you will line those ideas up with what the Bible teaches is expected of you as a Christian husband or wife.

If you liked this post, be sure to check out the one Austin wrote:

A Different Way of Serving Your Spouse