Marriage was Intended to Make us Happy (Not Just Holy)

Christians are not always great at honestly owning human need or desire.

We grow up hearing people teach against anger, discontentment, or lust. The internalized message often becomes “Don’t be angry (over anything), don’t want what you don’t have (force your desires to a back burner), and be satisfied in God (be fully complete without romance).”

Yet, we are people created in the image of God for the glory of God with the intent that we should bring more of God to the world we live in. So, should we not take a careful look at some of our strongest emotions since they are created by Him?

What if, rather than silencing our emotions, we bring Christ into them instead?

Let’s look at one of the most quoted “Christian” phrases we hear:

“Marriage is intended to make you holy more than to make you happy.”

I believe God purposefully created marriage to create one of the happiest situations on this earth. Our lack to experience it is not an excuse to paste God onto an unhappy marriage as if He never intended our happiness.

God could have created the world without color.

He could have made food with no flavor.

And He definitely could have come up with a way to procreate without the closeness of relationship or the enjoyment of sex.

What if Christians walked around saying that God intended food for our nutrition, not our enjoyment? We’d laugh! Of all people, Christians are some of the most hearty advocates of the enjoyment of food, often at the expense of health and vitality.

Should not our enjoyment of marriage go far deeper than our delight in food?

God definitely intended marriage to bring much happiness. He says that only some can bear to be single, those who are eunuchs for the kingdom and those who are born eunuchs. He knew that the joys of marriage would be so greatly missed by most single people, that they would, by default, end up getting married.

“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” (Matthew 19:12, ESV)

Here we see that God purposefully created most people to crave relationship. The physical, emotional, and spiritual parts of us are born to crave, and it would be difficult to argue that when we crave something, there is not a part of us that craves the enjoyment of it.

Even sex was designed for enjoyment as well as procreation. Our bodies were created to need and want sex whether or not we intend to bring more children into this world. And God acknowledges that when Paul tells us it is better to marry than to burn.

“To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:8-10, ESV)

Most people crave companionship. What isn’t more fun when done with someone you love?

My question to the church is this: do we shy away from promoting happiness in marriage because we are so far from experiencing it?

Why should listeners sit in our pews hearing about the hardships of marriage and how our holiness was intended rather than our happiness? Should they not hear, repeatedly, of the joys of a happy marriage and how to maintain it? Should they not hear couples talk of life with their best friend, and how beautiful it is?

And when that is not the case, should we not all be on our knees in repentance for not pursuing the happiness God intended within marriage, and making it so? If God creates this gift for happiness and holiness, why should we merely harp on holiness as if God cares nothing for our happiness?

I think sometimes Christians find more enjoyment in food than they do in marriage. In fact, food destroys marriages as spouses binge-eat their way to comfort while avoiding the discomfort of a lacking marriage.

One earnest friend put it this way to me recently: “There are many kinds of abuse within marriages. Over-eating to obesity is one of them. It is unfair to a spouse.”

I was struck with the earnestness of a statement made so passionately on a topic most dare not mention. And I have to put out the question: If some things make a marriage difficult, do not other things make it supremely happy?

If some things make food gross, we add spices for flavor, sugar for sweetener. We study, learn, and taste test to see what works and what doesn’t work to create delicious food. We talk about pan frying or air frying or deep frying, knowing that whatever method we use will produce different results.

Never do we stand in a cooking class and say, “Food was created for nutrition, not for enjoyment.” (Though I do believe nutrition is of greater importance.)

Friends, let’s give a younger marriage-shy generation more hope than to pretend we expect less enjoyment from a monogamous Christian marriage than we do from other things. Let’s start giving our spouses the same effort and see what happens.

A happy marriage won’t happen if churches keep preaching leadership and submission while neglecting friendship, mutual respect and honor, and how to show each other even more love than we show our best friends.

As with everything Christ teaches, most “authority” problems in the home solve themselves when both husband and wife are emotionally intelligent enough to know how to treat each other as good or better than they treat their friends.

We don’t ignore our best friends, then expect them to shower us with love.

We don’t yell at them, then expect them to want to be around us.

We don’t refuse to talk, then expect them to want to talk with us on our birthday.

We don’t even use “that tone” in our voices when we speak to our friends. We wouldn’t dare! What’s more, we wouldn’t want to.

Tell me then, how another sermon on leadership and submission will fix the root cause of cruel treatment within marriages. I’m here to say, from experience, it often won’t.

Healthy leadership in marriage is a heart matter. When a man’s heart is humble, unselfish, intelligent, and giving, most wives will say without doubt that he is the best. She will admire him without trying. She will want to make his life great. She will want to meet his needs as he meets hers.

And when a woman’s heart is kind, she won’t want to yell at her husband. In fact, her dignity will not allow it. She will understand that every unit needs a leader, and will defer to her husband on larger matters of disagreement when a decision must be made. Her honesty will lead her to give input while her humility will allow her to defer willingly, when necessary.

This is a picture of Christ and the church. It is so much better than “men should lead and wives should submit”. Jesus always comes to the heart of the matter and offers the gift from abundant life within the heart.

So much of a happy marriage is simply emotional intelligence. Some things we just don’t do; some things we just don’t say. Other things we do, on purpose, often. We study, learn, and behave in ways that make our partners feel safe and happy.

For those of us who have or had unhappy marriages we couldn’t fix though we tried our best, let’s take heart that holiness is indeed more important than happiness. We know that our personal choices for good do not always create good in another.

But we honor God and find even deeper love from Christ in these places. And we will always know the happiness God intended us to have, while we wish that the church, rather than stick a Jesus label onto unhappy marriages, would do internal surgery to find the cause and cure of it all.

For the Christ Who created Love,

Sara