God Designed Marriage To Test You|The Divine Helper In Your Spouse

Spouses who struggle in their relationship wonder why God created marriage in the first place. Some regret marrying their spouse and secretly hope to jump out given an opportunity.

Building a flourishing marriage requires understanding why God designed marriage in the first place. The obvious reasons are companionship and filling the earth, but there is another reason that contains more reasons within it.

Just to give you a glimpse of where I am coming from, let me mention that sin spoilt the perfect relationship between mankind and God, and also mankind and mankind. For this reason, we don’t get along well all the time.

To restore these relationships, Christ died on the cross. When we believe in Him, our sinful nature is exchanged for a new nature that is born and controlled by the Holy Spirit. Only then are we empowered to relate better with God and others.

Marriage Helps Us To Be More Like Christ

Yes. This is perhaps the most important reason for marriage.

It’s easy to sing our love for God whom we can’t see but it’s harder to love the people we see. So the way to know we really love God is to examine how much we love others, especially our spouses.

That’s where the test of marriage comes in. God gives us spouses to test us. In marriage, we put into practice what we learn about God in theory. That makes marriage difficult if one has not fully appreciated God’s love for them and their identity in Christ.

Let’s dive into the fives ways marriage tests you;

Test #1: Love & Submission

As Christians, we love and submit to each other. And in godly marriage, the husband loves and the wife submits to her husband. This is a test.

Why?

Because it’s not easy for a husband to love one wife and remain faithful to her for the rest of his life. It takes God’s grace and Spirit’s strength to live with her in understanding despite her weaknesses whatever they might be.

It’s not easy for a wife to submit to her husband because he is imperfect and may not deserve the submission. And naturally, according to Genesis, a woman defaults to control her man. Therefore, it takes a godly woman to submit to her husband as she submits to Christ. Sarah did this so well that she even called her husband lord.

This love and submission between couples is not based on the things they do to one another but on their position as husband and wife. Woe unto a spouse who fails to live up to their role and duty and point a finger at their spouse. They’re like Adam who said, “The wife you gave…”

Test #2: Faith & Godliness

In the Old Testament, when a person enticed their spouse to worship another god, they were required to report them and be the ones to throw the first stone. (Deuteronomy 13:6-11)

Your spouse will test your love and faithfulness to Christ.

Will you love God more than you love your spouse? Will you do what God asks you to do for your spouse even when you don’t feel like it for Christ’s sake?

When Job’s wife saw all that befell her husband, she had seen enough. She advised him to curse God and die. He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”  In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.” (Job 2:10)

Adam listened to Eve and ate the forbidden fruit. Abraham listened to Sarah and gave birth to Ishmael. We should take these warnings to heart.

Never allow your spouse to get in between you and God. Never allow your spouse to entice you to sin against God. If you ever lose God, you’ll have failed to fulfil your life purpose and lost your family too.

Another way marriage tests your godliness is the way you raise your children. We’re stewards of the children God gives us in marriage. Our duty is to raise them in God’s ways by teaching them and being examples of godliness. This is not an easy task and will test us each day.

Test #3: Headship & Servanthood

Headship is about serving, setting an example and watching over those you lead. God has given the husband the role of heading the family. This includes working and providing for them. Teaching them the Word of God and how to pray. The role is so crucial that it qualifies or disqualifies a man for ministry. (1Timothy 3:4-5) Leadership, like charity, begins at home!

The role of the wife is to take care of the home and the children. Some modern women may frown on this point but only a fool questions God’s wise design. It doesn’t mean a wife can’t have a job outside the home but she must remember that God will demand an account of her submission to her husband and handling of the children and the home. Remember, she is a suitable helper to her husband, not her employer. (Titus 2:4-5)

Both roles demand servanthood. Both parents serve and discipline their children. This too will be tested every single day of our marriage.

Test #4: Patience & Self-control

Living in harmony with a person you never grew up with is not for the fainthearted. It takes lots of patience and a dose of forgiveness to win in marriage.

Raising our children has tested my patience on many occasions.  I didn’t understand the demands of children as regards time, training and money.

Marriage will test our level of self-control too. When our spouses wrong us, can we react in a godly way? Or will abuses, slaps, elbows in bed and silent treatments be exchanged?

Marriage teaches us to be patient with each other as God is patient with us. The Holy Spirit uses marriage to develop the fruit of self-control too.

Test #5: Correction & Counsel

Will you listen to his or her wise counsel?

Our spouses know us better than anyone else. This puts them in a better position to give us counsel and correct us when we go wrong.

But this can be a big test for people who hate correction and counsel. Yet God brings two people together who have both strengths and weaknesses so they can complement each other.

The two become one but it doesn’t mean they lose their personality and preferences. So it takes humility to prefer the other person before yourself.

Spouses should give each other a free pass to point out anything they see in each other that doesn’t make God and each other happy. They’ll help each other to get better and enter heaven without blemish. This too is a daily test.

Are you undergoing serious tests in your marriage? Do you wish you would change your spouse or jump out of your marriage? Please relax and be at peace. You’re right where God wants you to be to transform you into what He wants you to be.

Marriage brings the best out of you not only through the good times and helpful things your spouse does for you but also through the hard times and unpleasant things they do to you.

Rather than seek an escape route, entrust yourself to your loving heavenly Father, endure the pain with the help of the Holy Spirit and encourage yourself in the Lord Jesus. Determine to pass your present tests until God comes to your rescue.

The five tests of marriage are real and daily. God in a smart way designed marriage to bring the best out of us if we do it His way. If not, marriage brings untold pain to spouses and children when they reject God’s guidelines for godly and flourishing marriages.

Thank you for reading this article. I welcome your comments and questions – as iron sharpens iron, let’s sharpen each other.