Don’t Elevate Your Spouse to God

When people fall in love, they often say to each other that they will never ever hurt each other and never break each other’s hearts. I’ll just say right now… Don’t make promises to your partner that you can’t keep. The reality is that you WILL hurt them at some point (especially if you plan to be with that person for the rest of your life), because it is simply what people do to each other- we hurt each other. Hurt people hurt people, and all of us carry our own set of hurts. Even when we try not to hurt those we love, we still manage to do so. This very realization came to me during my first year of law school and I’m so glad that God gave me this understanding before He brought me my spouse.

I was driving on my way to school on a Monday morning crying my eyes out (I mean, CRYING MY EYES OUT!!) because of a fight that I had with my now ex-boyfriend the night before. I remember crying out to God saying, “God, I am tired of hurting, I am tired of fighting. I am ready for my husband to just show up already, so I don’t have to keep hurting and fighting like this.” The Holy Spirit then said to me, “what makes you think you will never fight with your husband? What makes you think that you won’t be crying like this because of something he says to you in a fight? In fact, you’ll probably be hurting much more when that time comes, because your husband is someone you will have a spiritual bond with, someone you will be one flesh with. This guy is just a boyfriend.” Ooohhh… Good point!!

This is when I realized how dangerous it was to put that amount of faith in my husband that he would never do anything to hurt me or upset me. How could I hold a man, a sinner, a finite human made of dust just like me, to that standard? That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person! Most marital problems arise from the problem of elevating one’s spouse to God. They put them on a pedestal and expect them to never make mistakes and expect everything in their marriage to be perfect. And when it’s not, they give up on each other or start working against each other rather than with each other.

Just because y’all are Christians and you have Jesus in your marriage does not mean that there will never be conflicts or heartache. Being married and having a Christ-centered marriage does not make you any less human. Keeping Christ the center of your relationship just gives you a foundation on how to deal with any problems that arise.

So when setting standards and expectations in your marriage with your future spouse, set realistic ones. Don’t promise each other that you will never hurt one another. Just promise each other that you will pursue to love each other the way that Jesus loves and forgive as Christ has forgiven when you do hurt each other. Don’t set up your marriage for failure elevating them to God. You already have a God, you don’t need to make your spouse your God too. Spouses, even Godly spouses, make terrible gods. God is the ONLY one who you can count on to never hurt or disappoint you. So put your hope in the Lord, not your spouse.