When God placed Adam and Even in the garden, He provided a mission for this first marriage.  He said, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.  Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”  (Genesis 1:28)  In chapter two of Genesis He places Adam in the Garden of Eden to “…work it and take care of it.”  Adam and Eve’s mission statement might go something like this, “We are called to seek God first, to model our marriage after His love, to procreate and fill the earth and to embrace our work in the garden as we care for God’s creation.”

To build a mission statement, take some time to write down all of the things you and your spouse are involved in, e.g., a business, children, jobs, purchasing a house, caring for aging family members, serving a local school board, small group leadership, etc.  Draw from this list those things you are called to serve together in and begin to write out a paragraph that describes your calling.  Now think about your values as a couple and include the most important ones.  Again, for example: loving God and seeking Him together, debt free living and spiritual gifts.  Prayerfully begin creating a statement that includes both doing and values lists.

As this paragraph is refined year-to-year you will discover the unity of co-mission and the beauty of sub-mission, or operating together under the mission.

It is truly unfortunate that the word submission conjures up such strong feelings especially among North American women.  It really should not.  Recently, I was teaching in a room with three different races present and found that the expressions and beliefs about the topic of submission were quite varied and typically non-biblical.  Even mentioning the word seemed to send shudders up the spines of those godly ladies.  Why?  Most women view submission as a subservient existence cowering to a man’s latest whim and wish.  Do you seriously think that was the meaning of submission in Ephesians five?  When Paul asked women to submit to their husbands do you think for a moment he was instructing you to grovel at your husband’s feet and shout “immediately sir” to every request?

The Greek word is Hupo Tasso and it was a military term, which meant to “arrange under.”  It literally has to do with leading the troops toward a mission.  Our English word, submission has a prefix (sub) that means “under.”  So, the word would best be defined as, “under the mission.”  Here’s the biggest question to consider, “Husbands, what’s the mission?”  If you and your spouse have not identified the mission(s) of your marriage, then what may I ask are you submitting to?  If submission literally means under the mission, you must hear from God, define the mission and write it down in the form of a mission statement.  God gave Adam and Eve, the first couple on the earth, a very clear mission.  What mission has He given to you and your spouse?  We’ll work on building that statement in the future.

Question number two is: Do you realize there is no perfect marriage?  Only one relationship on this earth started out perfectly: Adam and Eve.  Their world was perfect, their jobs were perfect and their walk with God was amazing and daily.  Adam and Eve chose to walk away from perfection and by the second generation one of their children committed murder.  Marriage is not Christian; it’s a creation act of God predating our Christian faith.  Adam recognized his need for a partner after naming the animals just as God recognized Adam’s aloneness.  He put Adam to sleep, anesthetized him and created Eve from his side.  A life mate, a helper, a woman was God’s idea and would form the basis of our society – one man with one woman.  Marriage is not perfect because two individuals with lots of brokenness and needs say “I do” out of attraction, love and “similarity.”  Within 30 days this very commitment begins to be tested and we quickly discover we married someone unlike us!

It is God’s story to begin to hold us together through our differences.  You see, my wife, Mary, is what I am not and I am what Mary is not, but together we make an amazing and whole team.  Ephesians 5: 25-27 says that, as men, we are called to love our wife as Christ lives His church.  We are not Jesus, but we are His representative.  Men, we are our wives healer; we are to reflect Christ to her.  Your wife is worth Christ’s death on the cross for her.  Your husband is worth the beating and bruising your Lord took for him.  Behind discord, wrong motives, insecurity and marriage failure is unrepentant sin.  To love your spouse is to give your life and your love to them to the point that you bring healing to insecurity, rejection, low esteem, self-hate, etc.

There is no perfect marriage, because there is no perfect spouse.  However, the longer we are married, the more settled we become, the more healed we become as an individual and the more healing we bring to one another.

Last week, we ended this blog by saying, “There is no greater mirror of who you are than your spouse.”  I am not sure how many of you thought about that imagery, but after making such a statement I am hoping that you, in turn, received the following question, “How do I need to change so that I see an improving reflection of myself in my life mate?”  In order to move in that direction, here are three reality questions for you: 1. Do you realize that when you married, you were broken and you married into brokenness?  2. Do you realize there is no perfect marriage?  3. Do you have the mentality of an owner or a renter in marriage?

Question number one is, “Do we realize that we are all born into brokenness?  We all have imperfect families, wounded backgrounds and personality difficulties.  When we found the “perfect” person, we found someone like ourselves – in need of healing.  While weddings reflect perfection, i.e., perfect clothes, flowers, beauty and pageantry, they are actually filled with imperfect people and reality will set in eventually.  We take pictures at weddings in order to somehow attempt to remember how perfect things can or did look at one time.  In actuality, a reality wedding ought to look somewhat different.  Both the bride and groom should be wearing their oldest, tore up attire with bleeding wounds exposed and gauze wrapped around them like lace.  They should be pushing along their IV’s while trying to walk with crutches – not a pretty sight, but a sight of reality.  Psalm 51:5 says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

Marriage has a way of drawing the worst or the best out of us.  We’ll look at question number two next week and in the future some God steps of healing.

In the book, Sacred Marriage, author Gary Thomas says that God did not give us marriage to make us happy, but to make us more like Him.  God’s idea for marriage predates Christianity and goes back to the Garden of Eden.  Marriage was an act of creation by God.  Adam recognized a need in his life and so did his Creator.  God’s solution?  The gift of Eve.  God created a mate, once again in His image and likeness to be a life partner.  It was and is God’s idea for the basis of our society.

Initially, we are attracted to one another by our similarities, but that’s before we say “I do.”  Ninety days into the marriage we realize we married someone who is not like us and that’s God’s story.  It is God’s story to begin to hold us together through our differences.  You see, Mary is what I am not and I am what Mary is not.  But, together, we make an amazing team.  Under the New Covenant, as men, we are called to reflect Christ to our wives.  Is there a resemblance men?  As women, you are to reflect the Christ found within your husband.  If we are not working toward becoming more like Christ, then whose image will we reflect?  There is no greater mirror of who you are than your spouse.

The East coast is getting pounded with hurricane Sandy as I write this.  The winds are increasing in speed, the rain is pouring down, the creeks, rivers and tide waters are rising as the power companies are on standby alert.  It’s frightening and exciting all at the same time.  We’ve seen storms before, as well as hurricane’s, but this is to be “one of the worst.”  I have prepared with tying everything down, bringing items into the garage, storing food and water and purchasing extra gasoline.  Not sure what else to do other than wait it out, pray and watch out for our neighbors’ needs.  Marriage storms are a bit similar, i.e., unpredictable at times, can’t really know the intensity, and unaware of the potential damages forthcoming.  The main difference may be in getting caught off guard due to the fact that we don’t possess an internal doppler radar system for predicting marriage storms.

Storms, however, are unavoidable within our marriages.  When two people are close enough to see and feel emotional rises and experience power and control losses, damages may occur.  In the eye of the storm (or heat of the argument) we tend to become short with one another and allow words to be spoken that under normal circumstances we would never say.  Emotions seem to force the parts of us that we like to keep hidden, those parts that only relational hardship and pressure will release.  We push back in an offensive manner only to find a stronger wind blowing from our partner against us.  What do we do?  Getting louder accentuates emotional response for yourself and your mate.  Proverbs tells us that a quiet answer turns away anger.  But a quiet answer doesn’t really get our point across.  Ephesians says to speak the truth, but simply speaking the truth can be mean-spirited.  What’s the key?  Speaking to the storm in a quiet tone of voice, telling the truth with love and grace as an anesthesia and maintaining a spirit of love will increase your chances for minimal damages.  When the damages are minimal, there’s a lot less clean up work.