Marriage as a tool for holiness-Part 1
But just as one who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written “Be holy because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:15-16
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy, without holiness no one will see the Lord -Hebrews 12:14; 1 Peter 1:15-16
This year marks thirty-seven years of marriage for my husband and me. It has been and is still a journey of transformation. God is using my marriage relationship to shape me into the image of Christ. It does not come easy. This does not suggest that only married people are being transformed and single people are not. Abstinence is also a tool for transformation. Jesus was a single man. So was Paul the Apostle. If we allow Him to, God can use the challenges that lie within marriage for growth and transformation in our lives. In his book, “Sacred Marriage,” Gary Thomas asks a question worth pondering on. What if marriage is designed to make us holy more than happy? He puts it succinctly, “we can use marriage to grow in our service, obedience, character, pursuit and love of God.”
What is holiness and where is holiness lived out?
The Hebrew word for holiness comes from a root word meaning “to separate or cut off.” It speaks of God’s self-affirming purity, that He is separate from His creatures and from sin. For us His people, it is a call to live a life of consecration to God, a sanctification of heart and life. The call to holiness is rooted in God’s love for us and our identity in Christ. Holiness should be the hallmark of a child of God. So, before we live out a holy life outside, we begin at home, showing unconditional love to our spouses.
Love has been essential even when we are growing up. We learnt our sense of identity from those who loved us. The way our significant others (parents, siblings, househelps, aunties and uncles, teachers, friends, peers) expressed that love to us affected our self-identity and sense of safety. Where we felt loved, valued, and worthy, we developed a healthy self-identity. Where love was violated, we grew up feeling unloved and developed a faulty sense of identity. A person who feels unlovable becomes alert to threats against his or her person and typically develops self-protective strategies. We may come into marriage with ideals, but personal history overrides those ideals.
Rooted on searching ground
If we grew up in a family that showed mutual care, responsiveness, and support, we give that and vice versa. What we have is what we give. Our primitive fears, anxieties, excessive losses, internal pressures are dormant and unconscious. They come to the fore in intimate relationships and with intimate partners. My supervisor made a comment that we do not know how fallen we are until we get married. When our spouses threaten our identity and sense of safety, we feel unloved and unsafe and find ourselves rooted on searching grounds. Automatic reactions follow which do not build or edify. Sensing threat from the stress of this relationship, the brain goes into the fight or flight mode. When in the fight mode we become aggressive and abusive, reacting with anger, blame, criticism, humiliation. When in flight mode we withdraw and give the silent treatment. We can also go into the freeze mode and display feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, shame, and emptiness. God calls us to get rid of these things (Ephesians 4:31-32). And marriage provides a platform to practice getting rid of the vices and replacing them with love, kindness, and compassion. In this way we show our love for God and desire to be rooted on a shalom ground.
