God Told Me to Notice... Marriage Was Never Meant to Be Done Without God

 

God Told Me to Notice...

Marriage Was Never Meant to Be Done Without God

One of the things I have come to love about studying Scripture is how familiar passages can suddenly look different. You can read the same verses for years, understand what they say, and then one day, while studying them again, something catches your attention. Not necessarily something new. It was there all along.

You just hadn't noticed it that way before.

That happened to me before getting married.

"Thank God I'm a woman!"

During premarital counselling classes at church, we often discuss the biblical roles and responsibilities of husbands and wives with counselees. One of the key passages is Ephesians 5, where wives are instructed to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, while husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the Church.

The first time I studied those verses before getting married, I remember thanking God that I was a woman. In my mind, my assignment seemed easier. Submission, although certainly not always easy, appeared far less demanding than what God had asked of husbands.

Because think about it. A husband is told to love his wife as Christ loved the Church. That is no joke. Christ remains faithful even when we are unfaithful. He loves us despite our flaws, failures, weaknesses and inconsistencies. His love is sacrificial, patient, forgiving and unwavering. He loved us so completely that He laid down His life for us. And that is the standard given to husbands.

So, naturally, I thought: "Lord, thank You for making me a woman!" I genuinely thought I had received the easier assignment.

But during one of our premarital counselling sessions last year, as we were discussing these roles again, God told me to notice something. And suddenly, I began to see those verses differently.

What if the roles weren't designed to be easy?

I realized that the responsibilities God gives husbands and wives in marriage are not necessarily things that will always come naturally to us. And perhaps that is the point. God did not simply assign us roles according to what would be easiest for our personalities or natural tendencies. He gave us responsibilities that would require His grace.

The more I thought about it, the more fascinated I became.

Take the husband's responsibility to love his wife as Christ loves the Church. Many women have an incredible capacity to nurture, forgive, and continue loving even after experiencing deep hurt. We see women who choose to rebuild marriages after betrayal, who stand by their husbands through failure, and who extend grace in circumstances that are incredibly painful. This doesn’t mean unconditional love is easy for women—it isn't—but for many, the posture of nurturing and extending grace can feel more instinctive.

For many men, however, loving with Christ-like, sacrificial consistency—particularly through disappointment, disrespect, or betrayal—requires a level of grace that runs against the grain of their natural instincts. Loving as Christ loves is not simply about feeling affection. It is a repeated choice of selflessness. It is laying down your life. It is choosing to love even when it costs you something. That requires grace.

Then there is the wife's responsibility: submission.

This is where I began thinking about what Scripture says about the Fall. In Genesis 3:16, after Adam and Eve sinned, God told the woman: "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."

There are different interpretations of exactly what that phrase means. Some scholars see it as a longing for intimacy. Others—and this is the interpretation that struck me—understand it as describing a struggle for control within the marriage relationship (…And you will desire to control your husband Gen 3:16b NLT). It is the same Hebrew word (teshuqah) used in Genesis 4:7, where sin "desires" to have Cain. It implies an ongoing tension, a pull toward mastery and dominance.

When I thought about that, I found it deeply revealing. Many women are strong-minded, independent thinkers. We have opinions. We have ideas. We have plans. And if we are being completely honest, sometimes we don't just want to have an opinion—we want our opinion to win. 😂 We can have a natural desire to take charge, influence the outcome, and sometimes lead rather than submit.

So when Scripture calls the wife to submit to her husband as unto the Lord, I began to see that command differently. God wasn't asking women to do something because they were weak. He was asking them to surrender something that, especially after the Fall, can become a profound struggle.

Biblical submission is not weakness. It is not inferiority. It is not the surrender of your intelligence, voice, or dignity. It is an act of humility and trust in God. It is saying: "Lord, I trust Your design even when my natural inclination is to take control." And that requires grace too.

Men are not exempt from this dynamic. Every human being has an instinct to protect their interests, defend their position, and resist surrendering control. So while the particular struggle may look different from person to person, neither husband nor wife gets to rely entirely on their natural ability. The husband is called to love beyond his natural instincts; the wife is called to surrender beyond her natural instincts. Both are stretched.

And that was when the bigger picture began to make sense to me. God wasn't simply giving us roles. He was giving us roles that would keep us dependent on Him.

Then I remembered the triangle.

During premarital counselling, we were also taught a simple illustration of marriage: a triangle. God is at the top. The husband and wife are at opposite ends of the base. The lesson was that the closer each person moves towards God individually, the closer they ultimately become to one another.

I understood that. I have always believed that marriage was never meant to be done without God. But as I sat there thinking about Ephesians 5, God told me to notice something else about that triangle.

God is not only at the top because marriage needs Him. The roles He has given us are themselves designed to drive us towards Him.

Think about it. The husband is told: Love your wife as Christ loves the Church. The wife is told: Submit to your husband as unto the Lord. Neither command can be lived out consistently and perfectly through human strength alone. The husband needs grace. The wife needs grace.

Suddenly, the triangle made even more sense to me. When a husband realizes, "I cannot love my wife the way Christ loves the Church in my own strength," he has a reason to move closer to God. When a wife realizes, "I cannot consistently submit with the right heart in my own strength," she too has a reason to move closer to God. And as they both move towards God... they move towards each other.

Maybe that was the point all along.

The more I thought about it, the more beautiful God's wisdom became. He gave us responsibilities that would continually remind us: "You need Me." The husband cannot truly love like Christ without God's grace. The wife cannot truly submit in a Christ-honouring way without God's grace. Neither spouse gets to say, "I've got this." Both are continually invited back to God.

Marriage is not a place where we get to showcase how capable we are. It is one of the places where God reveals how much we need Him.

The goal is not simply to become better spouses.

Sometimes we think the goal of marriage is simply to learn how to communicate better, manage conflict, raise children well, build a home, and make each other happy. Those things matter. But there is something deeper happening.

Marriage exposes our selfishness. It exposes our pride. It exposes our impatience. It exposes our desire to be right. It exposes the places where we struggle to surrender. And all of that can become an invitation to move closer to God. Because the closer we move towards Him, the more He changes us. The more He changes us, the better we are able to love, forgive, submit, serve, sacrifice, and extend grace. And as both husband and wife move towards Him, they find themselves moving closer to each other.

So, when I think about that triangle now, I don't just see God at the centre of a marriage. I see something more. I see two imperfect people who have each been given responsibilities that are bigger than their natural strength. And I see a loving God who has positioned Himself at the top, continually inviting both of them: "Come closer to Me."

I think of this now when I look at couples who have been married for decades. They didn't arrive at that place of unity because they were naturally good at marriage. They arrived there because, year after year, they kept looking upward. They kept admitting they couldn't do it alone. They kept reaching for grace.

And perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about marriage—not two people who have it all figured out, but two people who keep realizing they need the One who does. Because the closer we both get to Him, the closer we ultimately become to each other.

That is what God told me to notice.

Marriage roles were never meant to be easy. They were designed to draw us closer to God—and, in doing so, closer to each other.