Once there was a husband and wife who thought that Christian marriage meant that the other person had to do certain things that were right there in the Bible, plain as day. The husband thought his wife ought to be respectful and submissive, and the wife thought the husband ought to be loving and sacrificial. Because they both thought this way, it is not surprising that both had a close eye for the text when it came to what the other ought to be about. It is also not surprising that both of them consistently failed the other person’s set of expectations.
The Bible, they both thought, is a book that instructs everyone else in the world on how they should “go about treating me.” And according to this approach, it turns out that both of them were living in a wicked and perverse generation. Every morning presented them with new opportunities to take offense. Every day was filled with fresh insults.
“He doesn’t work hard enough. He works too many hours. We don’t talk enough. I don’t like what he says. He is not a spiritual leader. I don’t like how he leads. He doesn’t discipline the kids. He disciplines the kids differently than I do.”
“She is unresponsive. She picks up on every little thing I do. She is silent for days. She nags me constantly. She is disrespectful. She expects me to lead.”
Their friends were quite distressed about this. Their petty squabbling and unhappiness with each other was enough to keep everyone quite unhappy, but not enough to present the church with any opportunity to intervene. Nevertheless, one day, a godly sister-in-law took the problem to the pastor. “Is there anything we can do?”
The pastor shook his head. “Not really. Not just yet. The only thing we can do is thank the Lord that they married each other.”
The woman’s eyes opened with astonishment. “What?”
“It is the mercy of God. Suppose they had each married someone else. In God’s sovereign decree, He decided to make two people miserable instead of four.”