by Ian McKerracher

Recently, my dear wife and I came home from a four-day road trip. It was a few days in the mountains to celebrate our 43rd wedding anniversary. It was fitting that the celebration was a road trip as we have been road-tripping for as long as we have been together. Our honeymoon was a road trip to Seattle, Washington. We have gone on a couple of road trips internationally, flying to Great Britain and to Germany, renting a car with Air Miles, and driving around the countryside looking at any of the sights that catch our fancy. We have crossed this enormous nation of Canada in a car, driving East until the ocean stopped us. We would have gone to Newfoundland, also, to drive around that “Rock” but we missed the ferry and the wait was too long for us. (Check bucket list) We came back through the northern states, checking out the places that grabbed our attention along the way.

Road-tripping is one of the great pleasures of the marriage relationship for us. We accomplish the travel, from here to there and back again, with the radio off and our attention on the landscapes and the miles, slipping under our wheels. And also on each other as we talk about all the things, both great and small, that cross our minds as we move. We are within easy reach of each other for a touch of the hand or a glance of wordless love between us. We share this intimacy as fellow-travelers and partners in life with an intentionality that is the stuff of legends. This is what marriage is supposed to look like.

Interestingly, that is an item in the building of a worldview. What IS marriage supposed to look like? It is the foundational building block of most other bits and parts of the human community. Most sociological studies would say so. There are elements of its influence in all that we do and, if we don’t get this right, we are in for a dismal society. I understand that there are numerous iterations of the social arrangement of family, and they all can have things to add to our world in a positive way but the husband-and-wife relationship is the most common and most basic and it seems that it is the ideal to which most Canadians strive.

When I think of these things, I have settled on an idea, now built into my personal worldview, that came to me from some forgotten seminar when I was just getting my faith legs under me about how Christianity relates to marriage. I was single when I became a Christian and got married about three-and-a-half years after that overwhelming experience. The idea which caught my allegiance is that God has intentionally formed marriage for everyone’s mutual benefit. It’s like the way the laws of physics look after the relationships between molecules and planets and the way the laws of chemistry will always make the same predictable reactions happen when the conditions are the same. The “Laws of Social Engagement” (I just made that up) in the relationships between human beings are, mostly, as predictable as those natural laws. If you read the Bible, you will notice that every human relationship is covered within the pages. There are passages that cover the relationship between us and the government, the police, our boss, or all the other authorities in our lives. There are also some that cover how we should act when we have the responsibility of being the authority. It talks about mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, friends, enemies, strangers, servants, and every other way that people interact. In the scriptures, God weaves a textual tapestry of what the “Laws of Social Engagement” look like and challenges us to do what is necessary to be co-workers with Him in their applications. That is for the betterment of everybody involved, not only in the family but in the culture at its widest. If we submit to the design that God has stamped on human society, things work out the best for us all.

It is of no surprise that the marriage relationship is also given some ink in the Bible. The go-to passage is in Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”  That is not for the faint in heart. That word, “love”, of course, is translated from the Greek, agape, the word that makes love a matter of the will seeking the best for the object of the love, regardless of the cost to the lover. I remember looking for counsel about some forgotten conflict between my wife and I, where I thought that she was not following Ephesians 5:22; the one about wives submitted to husbands. The wise words I heard were, “Don’t read that one. It isn’t addressed to you. Read verse 25 instead.” Wise words indeed!

But it certainly does not stop there! Did you think that the “husband” passage in Ephesians 5 is the focus? It is only the one found after Ephesians. Here is a string of passages from that call to Christian living...

5:2 With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

5:3 Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

5:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, [even] Christ:

5:22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

5:25 Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.

5:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:

5:29 Let no communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

5:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

5:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

The Bible informs my worldview about how I am to be the best husband that I can be, to a particular woman. This works hand-in-hand as I become the man of God; an example of success that God has in His mind when He provided for my salvation. My wife is to be the focus of my attention, out of all the people on the Earth. This relationship, above all others, is to teach me to love this closest neighbour to me. Everything I know about Christianity is to be worked out in the crucible of the honesty of the marriage relationship. I did not know how hard it is to actually listen to a person until I committed myself to listen to my wife. I didn’t know how selfish I was until I committed to be like Christ to another person; one who is full of opinions and thoughts of her own and who shares my living space, where hiding places are few and far between. That this is a relationship that is seminal to all others is not an overstatement, if not in eternal importance, certainly in influence here in the nasty now-and-now. If you don’t believe me, try praying when you are fighting with your spouse without offering words of repentance first. Many times, especially in the early years of our marriage, I was very thankful for the teaching we received regarding Christian conflict resolution. 

I want to ensure that the purpose of this blog is not to scare anybody off of marriage with all of this. Yes, it is difficult at times, mostly when I am being self-centered in some way; when I am being un-Christian. If you want to get closer to God, get closer to your spouse. If Christianity is fueled by Love, in the most basic of definitions, this is a commitment that pays high dividends. If I am to “serve my generation by the will of God”, it is here where I must start. God meets with me more in the valleys of servanthood and less on the mountaintops of personal experience. When I serve my wife, overcoming my desire to look after myself, or, worse yet, in expectations of always being served by her, I am exercising myself to godliness. I am becoming more like Jesus when I do justice with my wife, love mercy towards my wife, and walk humbly in the presence of my wife. My marriage becomes a social laboratory where I can experiment with ideas of social engagement and have conversations of eternal significance in a place of complete honesty, exposure, and safety. 

So, the continuing education of Christianity found far away from the centers of theological book-learning in ivy-covered institutes, continues apace in my marriage. The classroom of our automobile went 1200 kilometers of paved highway and over the terrain of the places where we stopped to walk around a mountain lake or to see a frozen waterfall. We visited some restaurants that were familiar, and we talked about the past repasts there. We also visited some new restaurants to enjoy new experiences. We stayed in three different hotels (Thank you AirMiles for the rooms and the free breakfasts. It really cut down our expenses). We even had time to visit my wife’s sister along the way to have a real face-to-face, so rare these days of the state-imposed response to this infernal virus. (Don’t tell anybody...we hugged when we said goodbye). We loved each other the whole four days and, though we came back a little road-weary, we were refreshed in our spirits. All in all...an enormous win for the Kingdom of God.