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Marriage as a Covenant {Episode 245}
342 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Bonnie & Audrey discuss marriage as a covenant. They discuss christian marriage rules, what is a christian marriage, and how to keep your covenant with your spouse. Coming from a place of authority with almost 50 years of marriage between them, this is christian marriage advice you have been looking for.
Mentioned in this episode:
About Outnumbered the Podcast:
Two moms, parenting a combined total of 19 kids and finding joy in the chaos.
Join Audrey and Bonnie as they share real parenting tips for real people through humor, advice and compassion.
Whether it's tackling how to teach kids to work or discussing where to turn when you're all out of patience, these two experienced moms are here to offer authentic tips for raising children joyfully.
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Transcript
Introduction & Hosts' Backgrounds
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 245 of Outnumber the Podcast. Today we have another one in our marriage series for you, and we're talking about marriage as a covenant today. So we're going to cover all what marriage means to us as Christian women in a monogamous marriage, and we are so excited to share how we have made our marriages last. Let's get started.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
00:00:55
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to this episode. We are excited to share another one in our marriage series with you guys.
Milestone Celebration & Audience Engagement
00:01:02
Speaker
And can I just say for a second here, how incredible it is that this is episode 245. Bonnie and I are getting so close to like 250.
00:01:11
Speaker
I know. I know. What are we going to do? Some sort of party. I don't know. Every time we hit 100 something, it's always fun. But 250, that's a solid quarter of a thousand, right? Crazy. So thank you guys for listening. And for every time that you write a review or send us an email, it always is so nice to know that people listen, especially when we're getting a lot of comments on YouTube lately, because we're on YouTube. If you ever want to see our faces while you listen, you can come on over. I promise it's nothing special, but you can see us talking.
00:01:38
Speaker
Okay, so Bonnie always is wearing something cute and bright and colorful, so it's worth it. Yeah, Audrey's always wearing something handmade, so anytime you like it, just be like, oh my gosh, make me one, Audrey.
00:01:49
Speaker
So talking about marriage is so fun. I mean, it is a serious topic, but we like to have fun with it too because you have to. It's a relationship that will be in your life forever. And so we often joke about how we are married, very often marry opposites, right? Opposites attract as they say. And what I've noticed is
00:02:08
Speaker
that it can be really, really fun to kind of tease each other about our weaknesses. But I'm so grateful for my husband's weaknesses where I can shine and his strengths where I don't have to shine because I'm not great at them. I will just say that sometimes in our jesting, we do have to be careful that it doesn't cross that line into bitterness.
00:02:24
Speaker
You know, because sometimes I get irritated. Why can't you just do things the right way? Why can't you just... Because in my mind, the way I do it is the right way, right? Which is not true. It's just one way of doing it. So I just wanted to share that, that, you know, keeping your sense of humor when your spouse does something that drives you crazy is so important. Just be aware that it doesn't cross into that, you know, the sarcasm, the biting humor, right?
00:02:44
Speaker
Yes, that is so good. I love the way that we, I mean, if I do say so myself, I think our marriage series is great because I think the paradigm for marriage is like all love and rainbows up until the wedding. And then after that,
00:03:00
Speaker
maybe you get a little honeymoon period, but then start griping. And we're very definitely not start griping. So today's episode is another one in kind of this common vein or theme, and we're going to talk about marriage as a covenant and what that means. So first of all, to start off, what is a covenant?
Understanding Marriage as a Covenant
00:03:20
Speaker
So covenant is
00:03:21
Speaker
an agreement or a promise, it's usually formal, between two or more people or groups to do or to not do some very specific things that are listed. Yes, I love talking about marriage as a covenant because I firmly believe that it is. And in my mind, a covenant is always something that is done with God as a partner, right? Especially marriage. When we view it as a covenant instead of just like
00:03:48
Speaker
this may be a promise or some level that's not quite as serious, we don't gain that bonus level of seriousness, sobriety, of commitment that comes with the word covenant. That is a serious, serious word. We believe that it's this vow, it's this oath that we do before God. And so because we do that, I believe that God is also a partner in my marriage. And so when things get
00:04:14
Speaker
unbearable. We've had a couple of moments where I'm like, oh my goodness, this is way harder than I intended. I did not sign up for this. That I'm able to take it to God and just say, hey, I know that you are invested as much as I am in this relationship. Tell me how to proceed. What do I do next?
Personal Marriage Experiences & Choices
00:04:30
Speaker
Okay, so we're going to go through the elements of traditional vows and like that most of us have said when we got married and discuss them. And so just to give you an idea of the place of experience that Bonnie and I were coming from, my husband and I just celebrated 27 years of marriage and Bonnie and her husband are almost a 20. So that's like almost 50 years of marriage experience here that we're coming at you from.
00:05:00
Speaker
Just keep that in mind. We're not saying everything that we say in this episode lightly, but there's been some huge amount of work to back it up. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up too because it is so easy to look at a marriage from the outside and be like, well, it must be nice for them. Theirs is easy. It must be nice for them. They always like each other. Let the record show no marriage ever always likes each other. That's just how it works.
00:05:26
Speaker
family. And what is so beautiful about a marriage is that it is a family relationship you choose. It's the only one you get to choose, the only one, which is both super powerful and also a little scary, right? Like that decision, oh, is not one to be taken lightly, but also when things get hard, remember you chose. Now you didn't choose everything your spouse then chose to do, right? We can't, everybody has their agency and then we get to figure out how to deal with
00:05:53
Speaker
the actions that our spouse takes, whether we like them or not, but stepping into that power and acknowledging that is so, so, so important. Okay, so these traditional elements are really fun to dive into because we really want to pay attention to what we are promising when we make this covenant right with our spouse. The wedding ceremony that we do in our religion is actually, has some different wording than this traditional one, but we're going to go through the traditional one because I think it's pretty common and all of the concepts are pretty much the same. And that first line,
00:06:21
Speaker
generally tends to be, I, and say my name, right, take the, my spouse's name, to be my wedded wife or husband, right? Depending on who's saying it. What we love about this concept is that it indicates that choice, like I was saying, right? It is a choice. We're not forced into it. We're not arranged into this contract. Thank goodness. I mean, there are countries that do that. And actually, a lot of them work out really well. So maybe there's something to be said for that.
00:06:43
Speaker
But acknowledging that choice, like I said, it's the only one that we choose, allows us to step into that power. Even when our spouse does something dumb or we do something dumb, right? We say, yeah, but I still chose to be here and I can still choose to move forward.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's so cute. So of course, we have some adult children. And my husband and I have just kind of really enjoyed watching them. We have one married and one almost married. In fact, maybe by the time this episode goes live, it'll be past their wedding day. I'm not quite sure. But it's so fun to think of them and saying these vows and being at the beginning of the marriage journey. And side note, not everybody says these traditional vows.
00:07:26
Speaker
I think a lot of couples write their vows nowadays, but this is the springboard for what all the other vows are based off of.
00:07:42
Speaker
Yes, that choice. So some people believe that God chose their spouse for them. And that's what my husband and I believe. And it's been like a super powerful holding power for us to trust that God in his infinite wisdom chose the right, the perfect person for me, like the yin to my yang or whatever you want to say, like everything that I needed for the future growth and everything that my husband needed
00:08:11
Speaker
for his future growth was a seed in the other one. And like that, like he put us together for a reason. And that to me has been, that belief has been super powerful in holding us together.
Spiritual Connection & Commitment in Marriage
00:08:24
Speaker
Because then it's not me, like yes, I chose to accept what God had, who God had chosen for me. But like it's not, if I can choose it, then I can un-choose it, right? Just kind of making it more powerful than just inside of me.
00:08:40
Speaker
Oh, I love that belief that is so, so, so beautiful. And I love what you're saying about what you needed to learn could be or how you need to grow could be a seed that was in your in your spouse because, guys, how do we grow, we grow through.
00:08:56
Speaker
Turmoil through hard things we don't grow because everything is hunky-dory I mean sometimes my husband teaches to be something that is amazing and it didn't take a trial to get us there but very often it's something that we didn't agree on or it's something that we had to come together on and and kind of Talk about and and disagree on a little bit That's such a powerful concept and I love what you're saying is essentially that you did have an arranged marriage But God was the one that arranged it. I love that. That's so beautiful
00:09:21
Speaker
So I personally believe that my spouse and I knew each other even before we came to earth, and that might be kind of woo-woo for people. So I love this belief because it helps me to know that our relationship extends beyond earth, right? And sometimes that big picture is the only thing that keeps me sane, right? When things are not working out and I'm frustrated and I'm angry, I just think, yeah, but we have so far to go still. I want to keep working on this. It's important to me.
00:09:45
Speaker
That is a really cool belief and I am definitely open to that belief as well. I think one of our kids, I can't remember which one, told us pretty much as soon as they could talk that they chose us.
00:09:59
Speaker
They were in heaven. So I definitely am open to the spiritual, metaphysical world that there's something bigger than me. Okay. When they ever get mad at you, do you ever just say, yeah, bud? I can't remember which one. Just assume it was all of them. You chose to come here, darn you. So you do love me, whether you like me right now or not.
00:10:21
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Yeah. Okay. The next phrase is to have and to hold from this day forward. So what does have and holds, like you start thinking about that and breaking it down. Well, in the past have has various meanings, but it includes physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, sexual more. It means
00:10:40
Speaker
to have something, and if you look back in history, the word have, it holds all those connotations. Yes, and hold is just like a beautiful further step into that direction, right? It's protection, provision, nurturing each other. The historical meaning is that you hold something to keep it. You tend it, you watch over it, and holding your spouse in every area of life I think is just a beautiful, just beautiful imagery.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes those of us with large families think about all the holding that physically has to happen. We have to provide and protect and all this physical stuff, but I know in some of our other marriage episodes, we've talked about holding your spouse emotionally, holding them mentally, watching out for and helping them in all different ways. To me, this is all about trust.
00:11:33
Speaker
Everything is shared, like your emotional state, your physical state, your mental state. Like you don't have separate bank accounts. You don't have separate emails or emails that the other can't access. Like your communications, like everything is shared and it's all part of this to have and to hold that makes it, it's like the vow that came out.
00:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, I love that you brought this up. And as we were talking kind of similarly about this Inner Making Friends episode about rules that we have inside our marriage, I don't believe that having a separate bank account is necessarily evil, but what it does is it opens up the opportunity for secrets. And that's what we're trying to avoid, right? Is that this trust makes so that we are never tempted to hide things, right? And I will be honest, as someone who has struggled with spending in the past, it's very easy to want to hide things
00:12:21
Speaker
to not feel bad about your spending or anything else, right? Communication, such a big one, right? I admire people who have Facebook accounts that they share with their spouse because you're just protecting yourself from the potential of heartbreak. So I love that. This trust means that you know exactly what's going on in their life and they know what's going on in yours. It doesn't mean there can't be surprises or whatever. You don't have to tell him every second of your day, but that trust is really, really important.
00:12:51
Speaker
So to move on, let's talk about the line that goes something like, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. Another beautiful one, right? I have a lot of amazing examples in my life of couples who have encountered some really, really hard things. One in particular I'm thinking of where one of the partners has some debilitating health issues and cannot do anything for herself.
00:13:14
Speaker
And the spouse does everything, everything. Now did he run off and decide to find a new spouse when all of a sudden she couldn't walk or couldn't feed herself or couldn't take care of herself? No, he stepped into this really, really hard place of caring 100% for the spouse that he committed to before her and God and angels and everybody. Like this was his commitment and he was not gonna walk away from it. And I'm so, so grateful for those examples because life is not easy. And right now when we're young and spry for the most part,
00:13:43
Speaker
It seems easy to promise this but as we get older and life gets harder and our bodies start to break down we are still contractually obligated and hopefully Obligated in our hearts to to care for this person that we that we love so much even when things get hard
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah, that phrase is pretty much all encompassing. Like there's no situation where you're like, Oh, yep, covenant's over. Divorce is not an option. Like you don't, you don't say, Oh, well, you know, when you, when I married you, you were rich. I also have some really beautiful examples, like from a child, I just got the opportunity to spend a weekend with a childhood friend that I grew up with. And her dad was in a wheelchair for,
00:14:26
Speaker
There was an accident and he was in a wheelchair for most of their marriage and she like they like it wasn't even a thought for her to you know, this is this is the end but Every situation and and we know like you were talking about marriage being forged through the fire experiences this is a
00:14:46
Speaker
These situations when there's financial distress, when there's sickness, when there's health, when there's disability, that is when it gets really hard. But my sister shared with me something that somebody, a minister said to them at the beginning of their marriage. And it was, don't even use the word divorce lightly in your home. Like, oh, if you do that, I'm going to divorce you. Don't even use the word. Don't even let it come into your home. And I thought, oh, that was really, really good advice.
00:15:14
Speaker
It's treating the whole concept lightly and just divorce is not an option. Yeah, I love that. I personally like to think of the word divorce almost like the word death. Like I would never joke about my spouse's death. I would never joke about the death of our relationship, so we don't joke about that either. And I firmly believe that when there is an escape clause to anything, it's just harder to be fully committed, right?
00:15:36
Speaker
Like when there's a cancellation policy for a membership, I'm like, all right, well, if it doesn't work out, I'm out. And I know that's silly, but that is how it works in a relationship, right? So that is why we firmly believe in being married before, you know, a sexual relationship and before having children, because then you are glued together. You are bonded together, right? Otherwise, we bring children into a relationship that may or may not last. Again, sadly, marriages are dissolving at a rapid rate these days as well.
00:16:06
Speaker
When we choose to be 100% committed, we are much more likely to give our children the household, the home, the family that they deserve, which is coming to fully committed parents who love each other.
00:16:18
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:17:09
Speaker
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Love as a Choice and Sacrifice
00:17:21
Speaker
Okay. The next phrase is to love and to cherish.
00:17:24
Speaker
So love is a choice. This is something that I wish I would have realized a whole lot sooner in my life. But the only way that you can feel love is when you're actually giving love. That is when you can actually feel the love. It's something you have control over. That is such an empowering thing.
00:17:42
Speaker
I can love you. I don't have to feel love. I don't have to wait for someone else to show me love, for me to feel love. I can love you and feel the emotion of love. Love is a higher form of existence that God intended us not only to experience, but to live in. He provided marriage as that pathway to allow us to experience love.
00:18:06
Speaker
Yes, when I learned that concept, um, I was really blown away too. You know, like Audrey can love me all day long, but until I choose to feel love towards her, I'm never feeling her love. She can't like send it through the airwaves to me. She can't, I mean, she can tell me lovely things, but.
00:18:21
Speaker
Like, only until I choose to feel that love. So opening ourselves up to feeling that love for our spouse is the only way we get the benefit of being married. Because if we're stonewalling the love, like he can send all the love in the world, but you guys know what that's like when you're in a fight, right? And he wants to make up and you're not ready. You're not feeling any love because- No, I don't know what that's like. No, that's, yeah. Well, for those of you who have less perfect marriages, maybe you might know what that's like.
00:18:48
Speaker
But only until we open ourselves up to it do we get the benefit. So what are we waiting for, right? We want those benefits. And there are actual, some actual physical visceral symptoms of feeling love. It's amazing. Live longer. Those who feel love live longer. These are the benefits of that, right? They heal faster. Their bodies heal faster. What? They have lower blood pressure, stronger immune systems. Their motor physically fit generally.
00:19:13
Speaker
They have good heart health and a higher pain tolerance. What? Who doesn't want all these things? These are the results of people who have love in their life. Let's like sign me up. So incredible that love, the feeling like it actually is working a good thing in our body. So incredible. Okay, guys, that doesn't like, I made a joke, but love is not without sacrifice. But sacrificing is what makes love valuable. You can't,
00:19:39
Speaker
Like if it just came easy, you wouldn't value it as much. It's because it's hard that it makes it so special. It's the things that, you know, think about rare minerals. Think about gold. It is precious because it is rare, right? And that's what makes it valuable. And gold
00:19:59
Speaker
Anyway, I'm not gonna carry that analogy too far, but it's valuable because it's hard, it's hard. And so cherish means to put it first in your mind, in your heart, in your life, like above everything else is where you need to put your love and your marriage.
00:20:17
Speaker
Oh, I'm so glad you brought that up. Yes. Unfortunately, I think love is too rare in this world. True love, like unconditional love. It's so hard for us humans to wrap our heads around that. We just want, well, yeah, I'll love him, but he has to do the dishes. He has to step in the way I think he should, but that's not how love works, right?
00:20:37
Speaker
I immediately think of the love we have for our children because what a blessing we get as moms to understand that love. I think that brings us so close. Some others love brings us so close to understanding how God loves us, but we still don't get it because we're just human and imperfect, right? But understanding that can give us a little glimpse into the potential for how we could love our spouses.
00:20:58
Speaker
because that should be the priority, but sometimes it's easier to love my little kid than it is to love my spouse because I have expectations for him, right? I have things I think he should be doing. Whereas the love for my children is very often pure, and I don't know that that's necessarily the right way that things pan out, but sometimes it's just easier that way. I did want to share that this last Sunday we studied charity.
00:21:19
Speaker
in church. First Corinthians 13 is like the master class on charity. So if you struggle with love for your spouse, go read that chapter. It was like just light bulbs all day long. It teaches you so much about that pure love of Christ that we can't get on our own. We have to pray for it. We have to
00:21:35
Speaker
work for it, we have to have help because we don't naturally come by that kind of pure love, but it is available to us.
Charity and Trust in Marriage
00:21:43
Speaker
And like you said, Audrey, the more we step into it, the more we benefit. We're not doing it to help the other person who may or may not be worthy of it, right? That's the thing, none of us are worthy of it, but we get to benefit from it when we share it.
00:21:57
Speaker
Oh, such good thoughts. And yes, that is one of two of my favorite chapters in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 13. Yeah. Everything in there is something that I'm striving to do. Okay. The last part usually of traditional marriage vows is till death do us part. This is what
00:22:17
Speaker
God intended for humans, that until one of our lives on earth ends, this marriage covenant, all these things that we're talking about continue until that point that one of us dies because there's, yeah, that was what God intended.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah, I love that he didn't intend for us to just be dropping them like hotcakes and moving on to the next one, right? No, a single monogamous relationships was what he intended. There's verses in the Bible. I didn't look it up. Matthew, something. Anyway, it's in there so that you can find out what God intended. Yeah, I love that.
00:22:56
Speaker
So this is a part where the wedding ceremonies in our faith deviate from the traditional ones. We actually don't have this line in there because we believe that our marriages do last until the next life. And we call them ceiling ceremonies because it is connecting our generation to the one before and the one after. So it's like one big human chain, which I think is really, really beautiful.
00:23:15
Speaker
Acknowledging that God's purpose for marriage is that it is, you know, in His hands, essentially, not that it's something that we just let go of when things get hard. That was not what was ever intended.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yes. Okay. So let's go through and talk about the difference between a contract and a covenant kind of with some additional beliefs that, or some additional special qualities or traits that a covenant, a marriage covenant brings to our life. So the first thing is an expectation of trust. So like if you sign a contract with Verizon for your phone or AT&T or whoever, like
00:23:54
Speaker
There is some trust there, but it's not the trust of moral goodness, purity. It comes different. When you sign a contract for insurance, there's maybe some good behavior clauses about not speeding or something in there. But the covenant that we talk about with marriage is really all about our moral behavior and the trust that comes
00:24:23
Speaker
and is expected to come with that. Yes, that's so interesting. And when we think about the contracts that we human beings do with each other, they're mostly self-serving, right? It's all about, well, this contract is to protect me, right? Which always makes me a little bit sad when I hear about prenuptial agreements, because that's essentially what that is. It's a contract saying, if and when this marriage dissolves, then I'm going to protect my assets, right?
00:24:48
Speaker
That was never intended to be the case. It was intended to be this sacred covenant between you two with God supervising and so that you're all in it together. And that lifelong covenant, I think it does a couple of things. The first thing it does is, like I mentioned before, it creates this really safe and strong bedrock foundation for your family.
00:25:10
Speaker
Imagine being born into a family where you didn't know if it was going to survive. Every time we hear of a divorce, I can tell my kid's stress level rises. They start thinking, gosh, especially the ones that are old enough to understand that happens to a lot of people. What if that happened to our family and I've had my kids ask that and I have to reassure them that, no, this is the covenant that I made with God and with your father and this is forever.
00:25:32
Speaker
But having that foundation is crucial for kids to grow up in safety and the other thing it does is it allows us to be our true selves like how many times have I done something dumb where I'm embarrassed and kind of ashamed and
00:25:46
Speaker
And my husband doesn't care. I mean, he might tease me about it or, you know, give me a hard time or maybe even lecture me about it because it was dumb. And yet he still loves me and it doesn't matter, you know, even if it was something that ended up hurting him in one way or another. That is the strength of this lifelong covenant is being, truly being yourself, feeling comfortable to be yourself and knowing you're going to be loved no matter what.
00:26:09
Speaker
Okay, a covenant also involves a shared identity, which is kind of a weird thing. Like what other kind of contract would you sign that would involve you sharing an identity with another person? Like the Bible puts this in the words of the two become one. It involves intimacy, but it involves all those other things we were talking about earlier, like
00:26:30
Speaker
You're not your own person anymore. You are a unit. And just a quick side funny story here is there was a gentleman in our meetings that we go to every Sunday and he was having a difficult time learning all our names. You know, we have a lot of kids and all that. And I can't tell you the number of times he called me my husband's name.
00:26:53
Speaker
And every time I would just love it, I would just smile and I would say, that's okay. I really think that's a compliment that you think of me as like connected with my husband. That's so cute. Yeah. And then another example of this is among the Amish, there is a lot of same and similar names used. And so like they will, like say there's 10 women in the community named Leah, then they'll start to refer them
00:27:22
Speaker
as, oh, this is Abraham's Leah, or this is Jacob's Leah, or this is their husband's name. And I just love those two examples of the shared identity that comes with this marriage covenant.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's too bad that our society has become so... I mean, I'm all for women's rights, let me tell you. I am a pretty feminist Christian, but it's too bad that our society has looked down so much on taking on your husband's name, right? Because I think what that's doing, it's not subservient. It's unifying. What it's doing is realizing that I'm no longer this person. He's no longer this person. We are this together. Maybe it'd be better if we chose a different name, a third one altogether. Maybe that would help people be happier. I don't know.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, that to becoming one is so, so, so powerful. And an understanding that this is an exclusive relationship, that you only have this close tie with this one person. I'm reminded of how many times we learn in the Bible, you know, that the analogy of Christ marrying the church, right? That there's an exclusivity there and I think God is trying to teach us something there, right? This is a little glimpse of just how jealous of God he is with his relationship with us as well, right? And if we can figure that out in our marriage, maybe we can figure it out with our relationship with God too.
00:28:36
Speaker
One thing that's really different between a contract and a covenant is the emphasis on forgiveness. So if the other party breaks some of the pieces of the agreement of a contract, then you're out, right? But the way a covenant works is with an emphasis on forgiveness, because I am a sinner and I married a sinner. And so we start with that as our basis. So I know I'm going to mess up, and I know he's going to mess up.
00:29:05
Speaker
And so I'm going to need to forgive and he's going to
Marriage as a Living Entity
00:29:08
Speaker
need to forgive. And like that emphasis on going into it, recognizing that I'm going to mess up and he's going to mess up and have grace for myself and for him and forgiveness for him and for myself as well. That is something that does not come in a contract.
00:29:23
Speaker
Oh, that's for sure. Yeah. And another interesting thing is seeing the relationship as almost its own entity, right? And like doing things for the benefit of the relationship. You don't do that with a contract. I don't do anything to make sure the contract is healthy. That doesn't matter to me, right? But this covenant, like there is a need to put this relationship first.
00:29:42
Speaker
and to improve yourself so that you can show up for this relationship in the best way possible. But I almost think of this covenant of marriage as like this living, breathing thing. And if we don't care for it, it can die. Even if neither of us is really at fault for anything, we're just kind of being lazy and not really making it a priority. That's a real risk.
00:30:04
Speaker
Yeah. And the final part that I wanted to mention, um, is that with this marriage covenant, we invoke or we request holiness to be a part of it.
Divine Involvement in Marriage
00:30:13
Speaker
Like it's not just between us and our spouse, me and my husband. It's between me and my husband and God. And I.
00:30:23
Speaker
can and should be asking for help divine help to make this covenant work and to help me keep my part of it and to help my husband keep his part of it like it is not it is not just us there's there's another element of holiness involved in this contract in this covenant yes i love that you shared that i
00:30:46
Speaker
I can't imagine trying to make a marriage work with just me and my husband. We're just so perfectly imperfect, and like you said, one sinner marrying another, and it would be almost impossible to make that work without that holy help, that divine intervention.
00:31:03
Speaker
I believe that we are entitled to special knowledge and special consideration for this relationship, that God is as invested in it as we are, which means when things are hard, we know exactly where to go for the answers. And it's not the internet. It's not Google. We go directly to the source and say, I don't know what to do next, right? I don't know how to show up better. I don't know, or I'm struggling to forgive, or I'm struggling to apologize, or whatever it may be.
00:31:31
Speaker
that that thought, that knowledge that God cares about it as much as I do is a game changer. And it makes me realize that no matter how hard things get, I will always know what the next step is. The final thing I want to mention here about marriage as a covenant is I believe that marriage as a covenant with my husband is practice.
Eternal Covenant Preparation & Vow Renewal
00:31:50
Speaker
And that is for an eternal covenant with God, an eternal
00:31:55
Speaker
marriage, if you want to use that analogy, with his son, Jesus. And how well I am able to imperfectly work on this covenant and be involved and be one party of this marriage covenant is practice for someday the future marriage of the bride of Christ with him. And like
00:32:19
Speaker
You can think, you can discount everything that we're saying and say, oh, well, you know, there's those people, there's old fashioned and divorce is an option and all that, but.
00:32:30
Speaker
When it comes to the Judgment Day and eternity, there is no out. Every person is going to be there. There's going to be a marriage and we're going to have a part in that somehow or not. I just so much want to focus on that my marriage is an opportunity to practice for something bigger and better someday.
00:32:57
Speaker
Oh, I love that concept. And really, if we believe that this Earth life is not the end, then there's a whole lot of practice we're doing here, right? We're trying to become these people that we've been shown an example of in Jesus, and it's going to take us our entire life and then some to figure that out. But what a beautiful opportunity we have to practice with another imperfect human being.
00:33:16
Speaker
and to have an amazing relationship in the meantime like this isn't supposed to be drudgery it's supposed to be fun and loving and exciting and it can be but it is it is work and we have to put the time and effort in into it that it deserves
00:33:31
Speaker
Okay, guys, before we sign off, I have a little homework for you. Go look up your marriage vows that you said. And if you get the chance, maybe on your anniversary or something, say them again with your husband or read them again. It'll help you remember and maybe have renewed commitment to this marriage covenant that you made. That's it for this week. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie, and we're Outnumbered.
00:33:59
Speaker
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