Marriage Advice

23 September 2012

Dear Phyllis,

Praise God we are home after a marvelous trip to Penang. The Lord went before us and everything was divinely ordered. Hallelujah I am back in Thailand for another year with a good Thai visa.

My niece, Pam, has a daughter, Amanda, who was married on the 2^nd of September. Pam and her family are really the only relatives I have with whom I am close. For the occasion of her marriage I sent Amanda the following letter.

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22 September 2012

Dear Amanda,

Rudyard Kipling was the poet Lorette of England. For the occasion of the coronation of King Edward he wrote the poem:

The shouting and the tumult dies,

The captains and the kings depart;

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

A humble and a contrite heart.

O Lord of host, be with us yet;

Lest we forget; lest we forget.

You may have wondered why you didn't hear anything from your Uncle Bill congratulating you for your marriage. It was not by neglect, but more by design that I have waited until the dust settles from such a momentous occasion. Rather than sending you a perfunctory congratulatory message I have waited until the tumult died somewhat to send you a letter that I hope is more meaningful.

Indeed you are to be congratulated for such a marvelous decision. I had occasion to meet Besa's husband, and admire him very much. I have had no such privilege of meeting Ryan other than to hear that he comes from good missionary stock. No doubt he is a fine Christian man, and your jointure will be to serve the Lord. You have the great privilege of coming from a family that is in the upper 5% of committed Christians in America, and your background could not be more advantageous. This will give you an unusual foundation for marriage. The only problem, is that you come exclusively from a country where the culture has drifted radically from biblical roots.

It is tragic that 98% of marriage counselors, and most ministers in America, place love as the foundation for marriage. This is a deadly error, and the 50% + divorce rate in America proves this point. Astoundingly, the church in America is exactly the same rate as the non-Christian society, which indisputably proves that there is little difference between the American church and the unsaved world. For the unsaved, the basic reason for anyone getting married is that “we love each other”. This is the first question that any pastor or counselor would ask, “Do you love each other?” If the answer is yes, then that proves this is the right decision. Tragically, the universally accepted definition of love is nice warm feelings. This is highly subjective, and this changes as rapidly as the wind. It isn't long before the wind is blowing from a different direction, and the romantic couple says, “I don't love you any more”. Grounds for divorce. It is insanity to make subjective emotions the foundation for marriage.

The only reason a Christian should ever do anything is the established will of God. And the will of God is not a cozy feeling. Of the first three major marriages that we read of in the Bible, in two out of three the couples had nothing to say about the partners. The first one was Adam and Eve. In this case God Himself created the perfect partner for Adam. That was God's doings – not Adam's. With Issac, his father sent his servant to get a wife for him, and he simply accepted the girl that Ebenezer brought home. Jacob was in love with Rachel from the beginning, but he had his hands full of domestic problems for the next 50 years winding up with two wives and children from four women.

There is nothing wrong with arranged marriages. They are much more solid than love marriages. In former years in Japan – and to some degree to this day – marriages were arranged by either the parents or by pastors. I have some good friends who married total strangers simply because the mothers got together and thought it would be a good idea. The Kosugis have been married for over 30 years and it has worked out beautifully. Of course, getting saved helped a lot. I once had a girl who worked for me in the language school, and I was also her pastor. She told me that she had a letter from a friend in Tokyo saying that there was a fine man in her church looking for a wife. Was she interested? Tomoko asked me to handle it for her. I contacted the pastor in Tokyo, and the man sounded reasonably good. Would she like to meet him? Two weeks after a three hour meeting in the pastors home in Tokyo, I asked Tomoko what she thought of the boy. Yes, he certainly was a fine Christian man. I called the pastor, and we decided that the couple should get married, and when. Tomoko was stunned, but they have had a wonderful marriage for 35 years.

What I am saying is that to obey Jesus, and the will of God, is the bed-rock foundation for doing anything in life. In the many years of the revolving door counseling I went to with Rosemary, I told the counselors, “I love my wife because it is the will of God.” They were viably stunned. One counselor replied, “Don't you think that is pretty legalistic?” I replied, “I don't know if it is legalistic or not, but I do believe it is the right thing to do. And I believe the Holy Spirit bears witness in giving me the nice warm feelings I am supposed to have” They were shocked that I would do such a radical thing as to love my wife because it was in obedience to Christ.

The reason my first marriage with Rosemary failed was simply because she refused to say yes to Jesus. From day one, she adamantly declared she had made a mistake and wanted to get out of the marriage. To this day she refuses to accept that our marriage was the will of God for her life. Whether or not it was the will of God that we got married is academic; but once it happened, there was no more argument as to what we should do. I used the illustration of David and Bathsheba. There is no way you can say David was Spirit led in having adultery with another man's wife and then have him killed to cover his own sin. The Bible doesn't suggest whether or not her sex with the king was consensual or not, but Bathsheba had little choice with a king who wanted to rape her. Accepting that it was a rape and a murder, no woman had more grounds to hate a man, and say she was violated than Bathsheba. She could have been justifiably bitter. But the angel Gabriel could have torn out a page from the Book of Matthew in the archives of heaven, which was written before God made the earth, and show her how her name is in the linage of Christ (Mt. 1:6). Was her marriage with David the will of God? God settled that before He made Adam. That is a clear case of God taking some horrible thing and making it into the will of God. This is Rom. 8:28 – “God makes all things to work together for good'” (the Japanese translation). Rosemary saw that there was an argument that God can take even our mistakes and make them into His will for our lives, but she doggedly refused to accept that it was the will of God for us to be married' And that was it! That is just plain stubbornness.

Hopefully, you and Ryan will never have that problem. But you will be unusual if you don't have some time in the future when you are challenged about decisions you make. Divorce is not a consideration. That can never be placed on the table as an option. I was shocked that there were Christian counselors in America that would consider divorce as a solution for a dysfunctional marriage.

I trust you will never have a dysfunctional marriage, but, if you do, that is no serious problem. To start with the word dysfunctional does not appear in the Bible. The only word that we find in the Bible is obey; and that is not conditional. I do not obey if my partner obeys. My obedience to Jesus is not conditional on the performance of the other. Obedience stands exclusively alone. Tragically the secular marriage is a 50-50 proposition. “I will love you if you obey me.” Or the reverse, “I will obey you if you love me.” My obedience to Christ has nothing to do with how the other one is performing. More than that, I feel a dysfunctional marriage is more honoring to God than one where there is nothing is but peaches and cream. It takes no grace of God to get along when the lovely south wind is blowing your way. But when a person finds themselves in a difficult situation, and yet is still determined to honor God by doing what is right; that brings the most glory to God. The marriages I admire the most are the ones where the partners are totally incompatible, and yet they are willing to sacrifice the most to make it work. That is where the Lord shines the brightest.

Dear Amanda, in one sense, your life has just become much more simple. Your days of seeking individual guidance are over. All you have to do now is to follow your husband. May I suggest as a goal for your marriage and your personal life is to focus on the main point Jesus taught us to pray for – Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come. If you make this the goal for your life and marriage, that will be as close to heaven as you will get on this earth. If we plead with the Lord to get honor through our lives, and make our family and home a mini-cosmos of His Kingdom, you can't do better than that. I don't pray for a happy marriage or a prosperous life, but I am desperately concerned that Jesus is honored in my life and family. And the only way this can be accomplished is when His Kingdom and government are operative in me and my home.

To do this you must concentrate on your two relationships. The first of all is the vertical one. You must keep your heart right with God at all times. Secondly, when personal ambition, or hurt feelings, come in, that is when the devil moves in, and begins to set up his kingdom. Let that go far enough, and you will have hell on your hands. Your home will be a little foretaste of hell. But when Jesus is in charge, He will make your home like heaven.

It is highly possible that we may never meet again on this planet. I would like to get back to the USA one more time but have no plans to do so at the present. If you and Ryan could ever come here, that would be wonderful.

The Lord has given you an excellent start in life. You are privileged far beyond the average. There is no question but what the Lord has some special mission that He has planed for you and Ryan. There is no such thing as special dedication for full time service. The Lord expects everyone to be dedicated for full time service. To be less, would be to accept a position as a second class citizen for heaven. There are no 2^nd class citizens in heaven. There is only the Body of Christ. Individual guidance varies considerably. There are some He calls to be pastors, evangelists, teachers, missionaries, doctors, nurses, car mechanics, carpenters, house wives, and garbage men. But the garbage man should be no less dedicated than the missionary. The Lord has given you the training as a nurse. Be a good nurse for Jesus, Be a good house wife for Jesus. Be a good witness for Jesus. But if the Lord would send you all to SEA, I would be extremely happy.

Tonikaku (anyway), congratulations on the occasion of a wonderful marriage. May Christ be the head of your home, and may He make your home just like His.

God bless you all;

Your distant Uncle Bill