Marriage, Part 2

Friends for Life: Our Need for Companionship

At the end of each day of creation, God wrote an epitaph: “And God saw that it was good.” But even before Adam and Eve’s sinned, God declared that something in Eden was not good: “It is not good for man to be alone.” Though this first couple enjoyed intimate fellowship with their Creator and lived in an unspoiled world, they were still incomplete. God created us to be social beings who need others. Marriage may be our best opportunity to enjoy this companionship.

When Cathy and I were dating we were together constantly -- meeting between classes, sharing meals, attending sporting events, taking long walks, joining a campus Bible study, participating in retreats.

But much of modern life pulls couples apart. A husband works at an insurance agency while his wife teaches in a grade school. He hunts and fishes with his buddies while she participates in a book club with her girlfriends. He serves on the finance committee at church while she teaches a Sunday School class. With such disjointed lives many couples drift apart.

Knowing that relationship building takes time, God gave the following instructions to new husbands: “If a man has married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to his wife.” (Deut.24:5) Wow! A yearlong honeymoon! If marriages are going to be strong, then husbands and wives must lavish time on each other in significant ways. Cathy and I have continued to cultivate our bond by sharing housework and yard work, reading books to each other, mentoring other couples, watching a favorite television program, exercising together, entertaining in our home, nurturing grandchildren.

Such extravagance may feel like a “waste” of time. Why would God ask us to pour ourselves out for our mates when there is so much aching human need? Because marriage is the school where we learn how to love another person: “If we cannot love our own favorite person through all of their ups and downs and trials and changes, then how will we ever love the poor and the unlovely and the forgotten of the world?” (Mike Mason)

My marriage “is the place where love must first be practiced before it can truly be practiced anywhere else.”