Marriage by the Book

A few months after my husband and I were married we were given a devotional book for couples. It was a thoughtful gift and was made even more so because of the person that gave it to us.

I’ve never been a big reader of devotionals. They just aren’t something I get a lot out of. But out of curiosity…I’d never had a devotion for couples before and was curious as to what it contained and taught…and because I wanted to at least be able to say we had used it if the person that gave it to us ever asked…I began reading it out loud to my husband.

It was interesting…for a while…but it wasn’t the kind of thing either one of us found would be very helpful to our marriage.

For me it was kind of like reading parenting books that tell you exactly how to raise your child…they just don’t work. Not for me. When my older children were little there was a very popular parenting book that taught care for newborns and young babies. This particular book taught exactly how to get your child onto a schedule and to sleep through the night. And people that used it claimed it worked very well.

I happened to babysit for a couple that had just had their first child. They were raising this baby ‘by the book’ and I was not to deviate from what they told me. The baby was to be gotten up at a certain time, fed at a certain time, put to bed at certain times throughout the day. And if the baby cried when she was put to bed I was to leave her there no matter how long she cried because she would eventually go to sleep.

That went against everything I believed in about raising babies. But I did it because that wasn’t my baby and it was what the parents required. I think it was as hard on me as it was on the baby.

During that time I met another woman that was raising her baby by the same book. We were both waiting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office and began talking. This woman carried her sleeping newborn up to the counter to ask how much longer it would be before they were called into the back because she needed to get her baby home so it could take a nap. She went on for quite a while about how it was the baby’s nap time and the baby was missing it’s nap…while holding a soundly sleeping baby.

My experiences babysitting that baby and seeing that woman in the waiting room were vivid reminders of what I’d always thought. Those parenting books that tell you how to raise your baby (or child) and claim they will work for all parents and all children if the parents will only apply what they’re taught in the book don’t take into consideration the desires of the parents or the needs of individual children.

All babies don’t learn to walk by their first birthday. All children can’t read when they’re six. And all parents can’t raise children based off the methods of someone else.

I found this couples devotional book to be the same way. The methods that worked for the author’s marriage…didn’t necessarily fit my marriage. The things the author said we should do my husband and I found useless.

And we discovered as I read that the author did not share our beliefs in the Lord or Scripture. The book was labeled as Christian, written by someone that said he was a Christian, but he wasn’t the kind of Christian we are. They weren’t bad teachings and the things the author suggested the couple do together weren’t bad things, they probably would draw a couple closer together if they did them because they were about sharing your thoughts and feelings with each other, but they were things that my husband and I just didn’t see as particularly helpful for us.

For one thing…we were already doing most of what the author said you should do. We were already talking about most of those things, sharing our deepest feelings with each other. We didn’t need a book to tell us to do those things and give us exercises to do to accomplish that.

But beyond that…

The book started with the couple and touched on Christ. I’ll admit that I haven’t read the entire book but nowhere in any of what I read did it start with Christ and bring the couple into it. It didn’t teach the husband to put Christ first in His life so that he could be the kind of husband the Lord designed. It didn’t teach the wife to put Christ first so that she could love her husband as she should.

Christ didn’t come first in any of the devotions I read.

They were about the couple first and Christ second, if at all. In the same way that parenting book taught that all parents can raise their babies in the manner the author taught if the parent just followed the rules set out by the author. That book put the author’s ideas first, then the parent. The baby was the least important of all. Throughout the book it taught that the baby would learn to do what the parents wanted…and what the parents wanted was what the author believed was the right way to raise a baby.

The author of this devotional book presented his ideas through each devotion, then applied them to the couple. Christ held little place among the discussions of how these things apply to a ‘Christians’ life.

Christ’s place in those devotions was the same place He has in most professing ‘Christians’ life. Somewhere far down in the ranking, coming in below the authors ideas, the couple, the Bible, ‘Christians’, and whatever else took priority.

It didn’t start with Christ then move to the couple.

I never read that if the couple put Christ first and lived by His teachings, if they were truly regenerate and sought Christ with everything in them, then marriage would become easier. I never read anything on putting Christ first then your spouse.

And as I read through those devotions I was left wondering where was Christ in any of it? Eventually my husband and I grew tired of reading those devotions; we had enough of what the author was teaching. It wasn’t that we didn’t want to be taught or that we had a problem with working through any of the things covered in that book…the problem was that the author left Christ out of what he was teaching.

Much the way professing ‘Christians’ leave Him out of their lives.

And as I closed the book…I was left wondering…

Where was Christ in any of that? Where was Christ in the author’s marriage? Where is Christ in the marriages of the many people that read that book?

And as I set the book aside I knew the answer. The author was written by a ‘Christian’ and it was written for ‘Christians’. It was written in the same manner many Sunday sermons, Bible studies, and ‘Christian’ books are written. It is written for the professing ‘Christian’ whose life revolves around self-first, everything else next, and somewhere down the list comes the God they believe in, the Jesus that fits their life.

And so the need for ‘Christian’ books on marriage come in. So they can have a marriage by the book.

I have set through many a sermon by a preacher that often preaches on marriage. About every other sermon he preaches touches on marriage in some way. That would be fine, marriage is a big part of most people’s lives. The only statistic on the percent of heterosexuals that marry said that 90% of people marry by the time they’re 50. So a preacher speaking about marriage isn’t a bad thing. However, this preacher often speaks about marriage in reference to his own marriage, which again could be okay, but a good part of the time he’s talking about he and his wife had ‘world war 3’ in their living room. He talks about how angry he got with her or how he yelled at her.

Preachers are just people, fallen people in a fallen world, but…if the preacher is truly a child of Christ would he continuously yell at his wife? Would he continuously engage in ‘world war 3’ with her? Forgetting everything else…would his role as a ‘Christian’ man allow him to continue to act in that manner? Or would the Lord change his heart so much that it wouldn’t take more than once or twice before he was so grieved by those actions that he wouldn’t act that way anymore?

My grandmother has been a ‘Christian’ all my life but she and my grandpa regularly held their own version of world war 3. We used to have neighbors that regularly attended services at a ‘church’ building. They screamed and yelled at each other on a regular basis.

 These are supposedly ‘Christian’ couples. They supposedly have ‘Christian’ marriages.

My husband and I were driving past a Baptist ‘church’ the other day. He told me that the preacher there regularly preaches on marriage.

I don’t for a minute question that Christian marriages have stress and troubles. I don’t doubt that they have their moments of upset between the couple. Anytime you take two people, no matter their beliefs, and put them in as close a proximity as a married couple should be in, there are bound to come times when one or the other of them gets upset with the other one. The difference is in how it’s handled, what they do, and how they act.

I recently did something that my husband saw as disrespect to him. It happened by accident and wasn’t intentional on my part but it still happened. We talked about it days after it happened. He must have been unhappy with me at the time that it happened but if he was I never knew it. He did not for even a second act as if he was upset with me. If he hadn’t said something I would never have known it happened. He could have instigated world war 3, could have yelled at me, could have started an argument, could have refused to speak to me or done any number of other things but he did none of those things.

Married Christians are still fallen people in a fallen world. We do things, say things, that may hurt those closest to us. How we handle those times is often a reflection on our beliefs.

I don’t for even a minute claim to be any kind of an expert on marriage. Quite honestly I am about as far from an expert as you can get. But I can see the difference. I can feel it in my own marriage. I have 100% trust in my husband in all things. I know when he says or does something that upsets me it’s not done intentionally, not done out of spite or anger toward me.

When I think of the type of marriage that preacher must have to regularly engage in world war 3 with his wife, when I remember my grandparents marriage, my neighbors marriage I can see, from just the small part of those couples marriages that I witnessed, where the ‘Christian’ books on marriage have their place. They aren’t going to turn a professing ‘Christian’ into a regenerate Christian. They aren’t going to teach them to put Christ first and then their spouse. But maybe those ‘Christian’ books on marriage, written by those ‘Christian’ authors, will help those ‘Christian’ couples to interact in a way that they can find a way not to engage in world war 3.

So for ‘Christian’ couples…maybe they need sermons on marriage. Maybe they need marriage workshops and marriage retreats. Maybe they need some counselor, preacher, or teacher to walk them through things like not expecting too much from each other, calling or texting each other just to say I love you, talking about their hurts… Maybe they need a book that tells them day by day how to do those things. For some ‘Christian’ marriages a marriage by the book, even one written by a professing ‘Christian’, may well be better than what they have.

My husband and I aren’t perfect. Our marriage isn’t perfect, although I’ll admit that most of the times it feels that way. But my husband and I didn’t need that devotional book for couples because the only book we base our marriage on is the Bible. And if we both follow the rules set out for marriage in the Bible then we both benefit. But more than that if we fail to follow the rules set out in the Bible we hurt not only each other, and ourselves, but we hurt our Lord. So we pattern our marriage after the Book. We build it on the words of Truth. We live with each other; interact with each other, on God’s word. Our marriage is a marriage by the Book.

Which book do you base your marriage on?