In 2011, actress Cameron Diaz was quoted declaring marriage a “dying institution.” Ms. Diaz added, “I don’t think we should live our lives in relationships based off old traditions that don’t suit our world any longer.”
Most of us reading this bulletin are Christians and are likely in happy marriages. But you know that marriage can be a source of real suffering for the vast majority of married people. Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and author, writes that 90% of the married patients he speaks with would rank their marriages in the top two stressors in their lives, while only 10% would rank their marriages as one of the top two sources of strength in their lives. He claims that it is, without a doubt, one of the leading causes of major depression in the nation.
He furthermore claims that the vast majority of men and women are no longer physically attracted to their spouses after five or ten years. He says that human beings just are not built to desire one another once they have flossed in the same room a 100 times and shared a laundry basket for thousands of days. He then tries to illustrate the point by saying that very few normal people who live together for long enough want to keep on doing it. Roommates tire of each other. Sons and daughters grow up and move out. Siblings end up at each other’s throats. He concludes that the death of marriage is only a matter of time. He admonishes that society should be thinking about what might replace it; something, he says, that improves the quality of our lives and those of our children.
Genesis 2:24-25 are two of the landmark verses in the Bible and they are God’s basic blueprint for marriage. They lay the foundation and show how a marriage is supposed to be built. You look at any good marriage, and these foundation blocks will be in place. God is the architect of great marriages. Marriage was His idea, and any great marriage must follow His plan. Genesis 2:24-25 says, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” According to these verses, the four foundation blocks are severance, permanence, unity, and intimacy.
When these foundation blocks are destroyed by worldliness, selfishness, pride, or other sins, then it will look like marriage is finished! But if people will go back to the architecture put in place in the Bible, marriages will thrive and society will be blessed (Proverbs 5:18-19; Ephesians 5:22, 28-29). The Bible says that husbands can be satisfied with their wives for years, so it must be so!
Couples need to work very hard to stay interesting to and interested in one another. Too few couples are determined to do this, and the result is marital disaster. American society may sour on marriage, but marriage is not dying! In fact, it is beautiful and remarkably strong when couples will follow God’s pattern.
Kyle Campbell