3 Whose Kingdom?
Gwen had always carried her dream with her like a precious jewel in a velvet bag. At twelve years old she would leaf through her mother’s home magazines and imagine her future home and family. By the time Gwen went to college, she knew what kind of home and family she wanted. She wasn’t just hoping that she would be happy; she knew what would make her happy. Gwen wasn’t aware of it but she didn’t really date men in college; no, she shopped for a man. She was looking for that special man who would help her realize her dream. So, the more she got to know Barry, the more she was attracted to him. Gwen really did think she was falling in love with Barry, and he loved the fact that she was crazy about him.
It was a quick courtship. Neither Gwen nor Barry wanted anything to get in the way of their developing union. The wedding between their junior and senior years of college was exciting and beautiful. They really did seem like the perfect couple. Gwen was vibrant and relational, and Barry was administrative and analytical; they seemed to complement each other perfectly. Gwen couldn’t believe it. She remembered the scrapbook she had made as a little girl. She was about to live what she had pasted on the pages!
Getting pregnant right away wasn’t part of Gwen’s dream, but so many other things had fallen into place so perfectly that she took it in stride. It bothered her that she wouldn’t graduate with Barry, but she knew there would be a time in the future when she would finish her studies. Barry wasn’t prepared for the pressure of a full-time job and full-time school, but he knew he had to make it work. They were both shocked to learn that Gwen was carrying twins. Gwen was overwhelmed at the thought of her instant family, but she couldn’t tell Barry. There simply wasn’t time in his busy schedule to listen to her worry and complaints. They both settled into separate daily routines, as Gwen tried to convince herself that she was still taking steps toward living her dream.
There were no pictures in Gwen’s girlhood scrapbook of colicky twins, a small house, heavy school loans, or a poorly paying, entry-level job. Gwen tried not to be depressed, but she was. Their house had no yard whatsoever, and the interior was so small that it seemed to be cluttered all the time. Life seemed to be no more than get up in the morning, work all day, go to bed, get up in the morning, and do it all over again. But Gwen’s disappointment was deeper than her physical surroundings and busy schedule. She was disappointed with Barry.
The way he looked at life had been so helpful during their courtship; now it tended to irritate Gwen more than interest her. It seemed that Barry was perennially dissatisfied with the disorganization of their life together. He constantly complained about how messy the house was, and he was always telling Gwen how she could be more efficient. To Gwen he seemed cold, distant, and constantly just a few steps from anger.
Barry was struggling as well. Gwen seemed more interested in talking for hours on the phone than she did in taking care of their daughters and the home. He was tired of seeing the woman he thought was as beautiful as they get now living in sweats and looking as though she had just gotten up. He knew it was unkind to think these things, but he did. It seemed that Gwen seldom had dinner ready when he got home and never seemed able to get the girls in bed in a timely manner.
Gwen silently wondered where the man who had attracted her so had gone. Barry could dress any way he wanted to at work, and he did. He had no time for working out and seemed often to eat on the fly, so he had put on some pounds. He surely wasn’t as responsive or as solicitous as he had been in courtship. It became harder and harder for Gwen to convince herself that she was living any part of her dream. The facts were the facts, and Gwen couldn’t escape them. Life was hard, and it was going to stay that way for awhile.
At first, Gwen and Barry hunkered down together and tried to make things work, but that didn’t last very long. Gwen was very disappointed at what her life had become and hurt at how Barry treated her. Barry was frustrated that in all his attempts to help Gwen, she simply didn’t want to change. The silent unhappiness both of them felt didn’t remain silent for very long. It started with little comments meant to inflict guilt and little statements that were meant to register dissatisfaction. But before long, Gwen and Barry were in a pattern of regular arguments. They both had a lot to say, and neither one seemed willing to listen. The more they argued, the more their negative view of one another and their life together grew. Neither one will ever forget the night when Gwen said it. It had been a long time in coming, but it was hard to move beyond its actually being said.
She blurted the words out at the end of an evening when Barry had come home late, even though he knew the twins were sick and Gwen was exhausted. “I think I made a big mistake, Barry. Every day I find it harder not to regret that we ever got married.” It cut Barry like a knife. She knew how hard he worked for her; she knew all the things he had given up for her, and this was the thanks she gave him!
The next day it was hard for Barry to come home from work. It was hard to face living with someone who didn’t really want to be with him. It was hard for Gwen too; her dream had become a nightmare, and she didn’t know what to do.
A DEEPER BATTLE
Poor Gwen and Barry—so hurt, so confused, and so wanting to turn the clock back, but they didn’t know what was going on, and that was the problem. It’s hard to fix something you don’t understand, and it’s even harder to fix it when you think your problem is really the other person. As Barry drove to work the next day, he rehearsed to himself all the good things he had done for Gwen. The deck had made their small house a little more livable. The vacation, which they really couldn’t afford, had brought some needed sanity to Gwen’s frenetic life with the twins. His willingness to work from home all Fridays had complicated his work life, but he was willing to do it for Gwen. He couldn’t believe the way she had been acting, and it was even harder to believe she had said those things!
Gwen was stung too. She spent most of the next day in a bit of an emotional daze. Yes, she did some laundry and took care of the twins’ needs, but she really wasn’t there. When she spilled her coffee, she began to cry and had trouble stopping. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! Life with Barry was all she had ever wanted. She could accept the unplanned pregnancy. She could accept the small house. She could accept Barry’s long hours. But his coldness and constant irritation were things she never thought she would be dealing with. She just couldn’t make sense of it. Maybe he was regretting that he had married her. Maybe he was having an affair. Maybe he was wanting out and didn’t know how to tell her. Her mind raced and her heart broke, but she didn’t know what to do.
Sadly, many couples have arrived at that point. Yes, the details are different, but they’ve arrived there nonetheless. The sweetness has evaporated from their marriage. The friendship has faded away. The person they courted doesn’t seem to be the person they are now living with. There is distance, coldness, impatience, and conflict that weren’t there in the beginning. Sometimes a couple will settle for cold war, sometimes they will settle into marital détente, and sometimes they will nip at one another as if they are looking for any opportunity to express their dissatisfaction. Sometimes it becomes all-out war. Sometimes couples hide behind their busyness. Sadly, many couples just walk away, never fully understanding what happened to the relationship that once brought them so much joy.
There are few couples that understand the one thing they need to understand in order for lasting change to take place in their marriage. They think their battle is with the other, or they think the circumstances in which they find themselves are what need to change. But here is the reality: all of the horizontal battles are the fruit of a deeper war. The most important war, the one that needs to be won, is not the war they are having with each other, but a war that wages within them individually. Real change is all about winning this war.
ATTRACTION OR LOVE?
The way to begin to understand this deeper war is to look at the beginning of couples’ courtship and marriage. Considering the beginning of the relationship between Gwen and Barry will help us here. Let me suggest something that will upset some of you, and then I will explain. Perhaps, from the very beginning, what Gwen and Barry thought was love was not actually love. Now, to help you understand this possibility, I have to take you on a bit of a biblical tour.
I have written before about what 2 Corinthians 5:14–15 says about the fundamental nature of sin, but I think it is particularly helpful here. The passage reads, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (NIV). The apostle Paul summarizes here what sin does to all of us. Sin turns us in on ourselves. Sin makes us shrink our lives to the narrow confines of our little self-defined world. Sin cause us to shrink our focus, motivation, and concern to the size of our own wants, needs, and feelings. Sin causes all of us to be way too self-aware and self-important. Sin causes us to be offended most by offenses against us and to be concerned most for what concerns us. Sin causes us to dream selfish dreams and to plan self-oriented plans. Because of sin, we really do love us, and we have a wonderful plan for our own lives!
What all this means is that sin is essentially antisocial. We don’t really have time to love our spouse, in the purest sense of what that means, because we are too busy loving ourselves. What we actually want is for our spouse to love us as much as we love ourselves, and if our spouse is willing to do that, we will have a wonderful relationship. So we try to co-opt our spouse into a willing submission to the plans and purposes of our claustrophobic kingdom of one.
But there is more. Because sin is antisocial, it tends to dehumanize the people in our lives. No longer are they objects of our willing affection. No, they quit being the people we find joy in loving. Rather, they get reduced to one of two things. They are either vehicles to help us get what we want or obstacles in the way of what we want. When your wife is meeting the demands of your wants, needs, and feelings, you are quite excited about her, and you treat her with affection. But when she becomes an obstacle in the way of your wants, needs, and feelings, you have a hard time hiding your disappointment, impatience, and irritation.
This is where another eloquent biblical observation comes in. It is that we are kingdom-oriented people. We always live in the service of one of two kingdoms. We live in service of the small, personal happiness agenda of the kingdom of self, or we live in service of the huge, origin-to-destiny agenda of the kingdom of God. When we live for the kingdom of self, our decisions, thoughts, plans, actions, and words are directed by personal desire. We know what we want, where we want it, why we want it, how we want it, when we want it, and who we would prefer to deliver it. Our relationships are shaped by an infrastructure of subtle expectations and silent demands. We know what we want from people and how to get it from them. We seek to surround ourselves with people who will serve our kingdom purposes, and we evaluate them not from the perspective of the laws of God’s kingdom but from the perspective of the laws of our kingdom.
Think about Gwen. She was not angry that Barry had broken the laws of God’s kingdom. She was not grieved that he was in the way of what God wanted to accomplish in and through her marriage. No, Gwen was hurt and angry because Barry had broken the laws of her kingdom. This side of heaven, there is a constant war being fought in all our hearts between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God. Every battle you have with other people is the result of that deeper war. When you are losing this war, you live for yourself, and invariably it ends in conflict with your husband or wife.
Perhaps these two perspectives tell us much more about the beginning of Gwen and Barry’s relationship than we tend to think. Maybe what they thought was love was not love at all, but something very different, masquerading as love. Remember, Gwen had had specific marriage and family dreams for most of her life. Although she did not realize it, Gwen was searching for the one man who would be the missing piece to the puzzle that was her dream for her life. Barry seemed to be that piece, and she wouldn’t even have to bend any of his tabs to make him fit. From day one she was powerfully attracted to Barry. She couldn’t wait to see him the next time. She loved his quirky text messages. It made her happy to imagine him in the middle of her marital daydreams. She hung on every word as they began to talk about a future together. Gwen knew months before he asked that she would say yes to his proposal. She was convinced that she was deeply in love for the very first time.
Barry hadn’t dated much, so it was hard not to like the attention Gwen gave him. The silly e-cards were not his style, but they were so Gwen. She listened to him. She respected his opinion. She enjoyed his company. What was not to like? The more Barry was around Gwen, the more he was attracted to her. He loved that she would pick him up at midnight from his after-class job. He would laugh at how specific her dreams about their future were, but he kind of liked it. It seemed logical that they should get married. He could marry Gwen and still be himself. He would get his dream and Gwen’s too. The whole thing was very attractive.
On the surface it all seemed wonderful, but perhaps that was the problem. There was no doubt that Gwen and Barry were very attracted to one another and that this attraction had produced strong affection. That in itself was a wonderful thing. The question is, however, whether what they were experiencing was love. Could it be that Gwen was not attracted to Barry because she loved Barry, but because she loved Gwen? Could it be that her attraction was much more self-oriented than she knew? What felt like love may actually have been excitement that this man she had gotten to know seemed to fit nicely into the dream she had always had for her life.
I have counseled many soon-to-be-married couples just like Barry and Gwen. They were so excited to be together that it was hard for me to get enough of their attention to actually help prepare them for marriage. Together they were convinced that they would never have any problems. Together they were persuaded that nothing would ever get in the way of the feelings they had for one another. Together they were convinced that they were a perfect match. They would sit on my couch, holding hands and looking at one another with glazed eyes, while I tried my best to warn them that they were flawed people marrying a flawed person. But it was always hard for them to take me seriously.
The self-orientation of sin can produce a powerful attraction to another person, but that attraction should not be confused with love, because that attraction cannot do what love will do when the reasons for the attraction die. And the death of the dream happens to every couple. None of us gets our dream in the way that we dreamt it, because none of us is writing our own story. God, in his love, writes a better story than we could ever write for ourselves. He has a better dream than the one we conceive. He knows much better than we do what is best for us. He will take us places that we never intended to go because, in doing so, we become more of what he re-created us in Christ to be.
Could it be that as Gwen and Barry begin to face the harsh reality of the death of their individual and shared dreams, they are not struggling to love one another but are being given the opportunity to love one another more than ever before? It is when attraction wanes, flaws show, and the dream dies that real love has its best opportunity to germinate and grow. For Gwen and Barry, this sad and disillusioning moment is not the end of it all, but the beginning of something wonderful. We could argue that God now has them right where he wants them. They are no longer attracted to one another out of self-centered desire. They are no longer holding onto their dream, because it has melted away before their very eyes. They are hurt and frightened because what had fueled their relationship is gone, and they don’t know what to do. But this is not a defeat; this is an opportunity to exit the small space of the kingdom of self and to begin to enjoy the beauty and benefits of the kingdom of God. What appears to be love may not be love, and when God reveals that, it is a very good thing. What happened to Gwen and Barry did not happen because God was absent from their marriage. No, it happened precisely because God was present and was rescuing them from themselves and giving them what they could not produce on their own.
Gwen and Barry’s marriage did not die; the selfish dream did, and when it did, real, sturdy, satisfying, other-centered, God-honoring, perseverant love began to grow. Their life together doesn’t look anything like the dream they once had, but they love one another more than ever, and they are very thankful that God wanted something better for them than they wanted for themselves.
THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE?
It would be tempting to think that perhaps God got it wrong. Perhaps he really did get the cart before the horse. Think about it: wouldn’t it have saved so much heartache, conflict, hurt, and disappointment if God had done things another way? Why do we have to marry flawed people? Wouldn’t it have been much easier if God had worked it out so that we would be fully sanctified, then married? Who wouldn’t want to marry a perfected person? Wouldn’t that make marriage fundamentally easier and more enjoyable? Maybe God did get the order mixed up.
Now, the reason we tend to think this way is precisely because we are so captivated by the kingdom of self. We are drawn to order, predictability, comfort, ease, pleasure, appreciation, fun, and personal happiness. These things are not wrong in and of themselves, but they must not control us. We struggle with God’s plan because, at street level, we don’t really want what God wants. We want what we want, and we want him to deliver it. But that is not the plan. You see, God didn’t give us his grace to make our kingdoms work; he gave us his grace to invite us to a much, much better kingdom.
Think of the sturdiness of your allegiance to your own kingdom purposes. Let me help you see what I mean. Think about how little of your anger over the last month had anything whatsoever to do with the kingdom of God. Your anger seldom comes out of a zeal for the plans, purposes, values, and calling of the kingdom of God. When you are hurt, angry, or disappointed with your husband or wife, it is not because he or she has broken the laws of God’s kingdom, and it really concerns you. No, you are most often angry because your spouse has broken the laws of your kingdom. Your spouse is in the way of what you want, and that makes you mad, and it mobilizes you to do or say something that will rein your spouse back into service of your wants, needs, and feelings.
But God’s grace is intended to explode that. His grace purposes to expose and free you from your bondage to you. His grace is meant to bring you to the end of yourself so that you will finally begin to place your identity, your meaning and purpose, and your inner sense of well-being in him. So he places you in a comprehensive relationship with another flawed person, and he places that relationship right in the middle of a very broken world. To add to this, he designs circumstances for you that you would have never designed for yourself. All this is meant to bring you to the end of yourself, because that is where true righteousness begins. He wants you to give up. He wants you to abandon your dream. He wants you to face the futility of trying to manipulate the other person into your service. He knows there is no life to be found in these things.
What does this practically mean? It means the trouble that you face in your marriage is not an evidence of the failure of grace. No, those troubles are grace. They are the tools God uses to pry us out of the stultifying confines of the kingdom of self so that we can be free to luxuriate in the big-sky glories of the kingdom of God. This means that you and I will never understand our marriages and never be satisfied with them until we understand that marriage is not an end to itself. No, the reality is that marriage has been designed by God to be a means to an end. When you make it the end, bad things happen. But when you begin to understand that it is a means to an end, then you begin to enjoy and see the value in things that you would not have been able to enjoy before.
When the war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of self, which rages in all of our hearts, is not being won, then we enter marriage driven by little-kingdom purposes. The problem is that our spouse does the same thing. So, it will just be a matter of time before the carnage begins as our little kingdoms of one collide.
It is only when a husband and wife each live in a purposeful and joyful allegiance to the plans, purpose, and Lord of the kingdom of God that their marriage can really be a place of unity, understanding, and love. Now free from the debilitating anxieties of the wants, needs, and feelings-fulfillment agenda of the kingdom of self, they are free to rest in God’s goodness, and because they are, they are also free to love and serve one another. Marriage is a beautiful thing that only reaches what it was designed to be through the methodology of a painful process.
Our problem is that we don’t like difficulty of any kind. We hate pain and despise suffering. There are many of us who would rather have an easy life than a God-honoring one. So before we ever battle with one another, we are actually battling the Lord. We are fighting his plan. We are critiquing his will. We bring him into the court of our judgment and find him unloving and unwise. We begin to wonder if what we have believed is true and if following him is really worth it. At the very same time, as our hearts are pondering these things, God is near and loves us with transforming love. He is carefully bringing us to the end of ourselves, and he is making us into people who find joy in loving others with the same kind of costly love he has given us.
So, as you read, I would ask you these questions: Whose kingdom shapes your marriage? Whose kingdom defines your dream? What really makes you happy? What is it that you want so badly for your marriage to be? Could it perhaps be that what you thought was love was not really kingdom-of-God, other-centered, other-service love? Could it be that what you actually wanted was for that other person to love you as much as you do? Could it be that your anger reveals how zealously committed you are to the purposes of your own kingdom? Could it be that the troubles you face in your marriage, both big and small, are not so much hassles as they are opportunities? Could it be that just when you thought God had abandoned you and your marriage that he is really very near, giving you the best gift ever—transforming grace? This grace rescues you from the one thing that you cannot rescue yourself from—you.
Reconciling your marriage begins when you begin to reconcile with God. It begins when you begin to pray this radical prayer: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, right here, right now in this marriage as it is in heaven.” Good things happen as the result of that prayer!