²⁵ For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her ²⁶ to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. ²⁷ He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. ²⁸ In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. ²⁹ No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. ³⁰ And we are members of his body.

Ephesians 5:25-30

Dear God, I was talking with a friend the other day who was telling me about some issues he is having with his wife. She is experiencing a lot of anxiety and anger over the current societal issues (politics, pandemic, and social unrest), and it is spilling out into how she responds to him. At the same time, he is incredibly stressed at work. He feels overloaded and burned out. Unfortunately, because I had to push our meeting about 30 minutes later than we originally scheduled it, we didn’t get as long as I would have liked to visit with him more about his situation. But I’ve thought about it a lot over the last two days.

One of the things I’ve considered is how my favorite marriage book, Sacred Marriage would address his issue. Starting with the premise of its subtitle, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy,” I found myself wondering how you might be working on my friend’s faith through this situation and through his wife. What are you teaching him in this that he apparently wouldn’t learn any other way? While I don’t know the answer for him, it would probably be a good question to ask him.

I picked these scriptures this morning because they are our command as husbands. Love your wives. Cherish them. Cleanse them. Present them as holy. Give yourselves up for them. It’s not about them taking care of us. It is about us taking care of them. If you inspire them to care for us then great, but we need to learn to go into our marriages as your servants. You came as our servant even when we didn’t deserve it and your love guides us into being whole. If his wife isn’t whole right now, your love, through him, can get her there.

Father, help me to know how to help my friends. And help me to be the husband and father you are calling me to be. Do it all for your glory and so that you might use my marriage to make me holy more than to make me happy.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen