The ripple effect. We’ve all seen it. Most of us have thrown a rock or a pebble in a lake. We’ve watched the waves pushing out from the centre of impact, where the rock first hit the surface of the still water. The rock hits, causing a seemingly endless rush of waves outward. Pushing and distorting the calm waters around it. Sometimes it seems like the waves never end. The size of the rock directly affects the number of ripples and the size of the waves.
This note is for my married friends, for those who will marry soon, or for anyone whoever plans to marry. Marriage is a gift. God gave this gift to us with the idea of two people giving themselves to each other. In every way. It is God’s way of allowing us to express our passions, happiness, hurts, and struggles with the one person He has set before us. The person who is to be our confidant. Someone who commits to be there, regardless of life’s issues. As the phrase goes, ‘in good times and bad, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer, till death due us part’. What a gift. What a blessing. The single greatest gift besides God sending His only Son to die for us. Earthly marriage is just a sample of the marriage that we will have once we are taken to heaven with Him. We are His bride. Waiting to be carried across the threshold of Heaven’s gate. The single most amazing event of our life.
With that said, when a marriage is working the way God intended, the spiritual growth possibilities are endless. The example we are able to share with our kids, or the example we are able to give our friend about to be married; or like the couple who has been married for many years, the example of love, patience, and selflessness, that so many other younger couples, my wife and I included, can learn from. When our kids see their parents loving each other and being each others strength, it shows them what God’s love truly looks like on a tangible level. No, it’s not the extent of God’s love, but it is a great view.
When our kids and friends see the positive events in our marriage, it serves as encouragement to them. Encouragement to live for God. To see what God has given their parents or their friends. When a marriage is working the way God intends it to, many other things begin to happen. When others see what God is doing in our lives, it presents multiple opportunities and desires for one to seek God further. Hence, the ripple effect. The positive influence of a God lead marriage has endless waves. It begins to implant an idea that makes them want more from God. What that looks like, well, that picture is enormous. Only God can see the hole view. We can only view the smaller parts that we see day to day. The daily choices to live for God can lead them into God events for years to come. Allowing them to experience God in so many different ways and in so many different places. The end result of this, we will not know until He calls us home. Until the day we cross the threshold of Heaven’s gate. But what we can see, are the little ways God moves in their live’s. After all, it is up to our children to carry the Cross to the next generation; a task that is much easier for them to do, if they are given a strong foundation to start from.
All that is just a small idea of the ripple effect of a healthy marriage. Of course, with some reservations. Not all healthy marriages produce children who make good choices. It is up to each child and every individual person to choose to live for Him. Those are the choices that are daily made or daily forsaken. With that said, what about those who choose to daily forsake the choice to live for God? Why do they do it? I could speculate, but there are far to many reasons, influences, or excuses to really be able to say for sure. The only sure thing, is that where there is a ‘healthy’ marriage, or a couple who choose to live for God, there is a huge target. We have a common enemy. This is not a new concept. This enemy has lived longer than any of us. He has had years to attempt to ‘perfect’ his attack. His deviation of marriage. His sabotage.
Satan works night and day to tear apart what God has brought together. His lies and deceit have run their course in our world from the beginning of time. Starting with Adam and Eve. The day the world fell. His work of constantly feeding lies to the children of God. The children that have already been freed from his curse. Unfortunately, God’s children, myself included, tend to forget that we are free from this curse. The curse that is on our earth. As a result, among many other issues, marriages around the world are constantly under attack. I think because of history, Satan knows when a marriage fails, many other repercussions follow. Kids become bitter, hateful, hurt, and shamed. All of which directly influence their decisions to live for God. It may not completely deter them, but it is definitely a road block to growth and to seeing what God really wants to do with them.
In the past few years, my wife and I have witnessed marriage after marriage being attacked and targeted. Martial issues are not a new problem. They have plagued our world since creation. The most prominent marriage issue I remember from the Bible was the affair between David and Bathsheba. David and Bathsheba’s affair was just one example in the Bible of a couple that believed the lies of the enemy. The Bible says that David was a man after God’s own heart. Take a minute and think about what God could have done with/through him if that had never happened. Yes, because of their affair, we are given examples of God’s mercy, love, and forgiveness that we may not have otherwise, but what if it had just never happened? What would David’s reign as king have looked like? How could it have been different? He bought into the lies of the enemy, and his entire kingdom suffered because of it. Again, the ripple effect. These examples are lived over and over again in society today. Why is it though, that seemingly more and more believers are buying into the deceit and manipulation of an enemy that has already been conquered?
This entire piece is being written because within the past year and a bit, my eyes have been opened to a problem that is plaguing our churches. A problem that is there, but it is still so taboo. By why? I am starting to loose count of how many couples, good couples, with good intentions, who are struggling in their marriages. My wife and I have certainly dealt with, and continue to deal with some issues, that only because of God’s grace, we have survived. In our small, private lives, we have become aware of a number of couples who have and are struggling to survive and to see God’s fulness in their marriage. If this is what we are seeing, what aren’t we seeing? We are only two people. But in our church alone there are many couples. Many couples whose lives we don’t see into. I realize that not everyone has the same difficulties, but we all fight. We all have events in life that challenge our faith and our marriages. I also realize that not everyone is comfortable wearing their marital problems on their shoulder; I would dare say that some problems shouldn’t be worn on the shoulder, but should be dealt with in the privacy of a counsellor’s office, or a pastor’s office. But I wonder, if we were more open about our struggles and battles, what could we do for each other? What could God do with couples that were willing to ‘let it all out’?
To my friends, and you know who you are, that right now are struggling in your marriage, I embrace you. I love you. I’m sorry you are in pain. I stand beside you and behind you. I can tell you from my own personal experience that nothing, absolutely nothing, no sin, no hurt, no pain, can keep you from what God truly wants for you. I am still to this day, and to the day I die searching for what God truly wants for me and my wife. If I stop looking, if I sit down and stop fighting to make my marriage what it should be, then the enemy has won. My son and unborn baby will suffer. My family will suffer. My church will suffer. No, I will not fight for the things of this earth. That is just futile. But when I know that my battles today directly or indirectly influence the path of my son and unborn child, I recognize that I have no choice. I need to keep moving forward. You need to keep moving forward. After all, God sent His only Son, to DIE for us. Don’t we at least owe Him this? To keep fighting for Him?
One last note. I truly believe that something on a God scale is happening in our world, and our enemy recognizes it. Because of this, he is and will continue to attack and deter us in anyway possible. I believe our world is on the verge of a new horizon. A world revival. It has already started in countries most of us have never been to, and will never go. God wants to revive North American believers. We have become stagnant, apathetic, and scared to the point that we can’t feel anymore. I have to wonder, I can’t help but wonder, what are you willing to allow God to do, in order to make your marriage what it needs to be and what it should be? What are you willing to do, in order to see what God meant your marriage to be from the beginning, or in order to experience what God wants to do in our world? It could be painful. It could be dangerous. It could be awesome!!
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