A grandson said to his grandpa: “Grandpa, you’ve been married to grandma for a very long time. It must be nice to share your life with one person for so long?” Grandpa stared into the distance, as if he was seeing a video of his marriage run across his mind. Eventually grandpa said softly: “Yes, my boy. I never thought about divorce, but I did think about murder!”

Grandpa laughed out loud at his own joke, but looked around quickly to make sure that grandma hadn’t heard.

To be married and to remain married is not always easy. Sometimes the other one makes you so angry that you feel like grabbing something and throwing it at the other person. It’s difficult to see the other one’s point of view. It’s difficult to get off your bench and go and sit with the other one. Because you have to make an effort and it takes energy and often you have to cut a piece off yourself too.

But it still is the best, because that’s how God planned it. God wondered what would be the best safe place for children. So, he created marriage, to be an environment where children could be led into the world. Like a trampoline that launches the children into the world with a bag of tools to go and find their own partner and bring up their own families within marriage.

It sounds like a fairy tale, especially when you look at the marriage battlefield around us. It’s no longer the norm to be married, and I suspect our children look the way they do because they no longer grow up in the safe environment of a marriage. They no longer even know how to do it, because they don’t see anywhere what they need to do to make it work.

I’ve increasingly come to the realisation that things work in seasons. Our marriages also go through seasons. There are summer seasons and winter seasons. In the summer seasons, we must gather enough energy for the cold winters. Yes, a cold war will sometimes break out, but there comes a time when one of the two has to call a truce. Maybe one has to pull together a bag of forgiveness and unpack them one by one with the other one.

Marriage isn’t easy. That’s why grandpa jokes about murder. And therefore, too, the question: ⁶Is he committed to his wife? And vice versa: the wife must be faithful to her husband too.

There are so many ways in which one can be unfaithful today. You can be unfaithful by looking at things on screens that are outside the boundaries of marriage. I don’t have to call a spade a spade. Everybody knows how easily scantily clad bodies appear on your screen.

Let red lights light up in your head when these temptations cross your path. It steals your joy. It steals your faithfulness.

The world needs good marriages. Yes, I know murder sometimes feel like a better way, but hold on. Be the least. Serve. Give. And show the world what God meant with a place to bring up children safely. It’s an enormous responsibility.

Get up, go and give your spouse a big hug. Tell your spouse how much you appreciate her or him. And if you don’t have one yet, pray that God will show you …

Scripture
Titus 1:5-9

Reflection
What is your view on marriage?
Do you appreciate your spouse enough?
What do you have to do differently?

Prayer
Jesus, thank you for the good marriage plan. I’m sorry, sometimes I overreact and do not put the other one first. Amen.