Does Your Marriage Make You Happy?

Is marriage supposed to make you happy?

Maybe the better question is ‘should I seek for marriage to make me happy?’.  “Of course!”, you say.  

Yeah, I don’t think so.  Again, just like my post yesterday about our aim being off, I think we are shooting for the wrong target when we aim for happiness.  The aim should be pleasing God.  I will use the word holiness (meaning set apart for God) for this idea.  

Do you see the difference?  One is about you and the other is about God.  They both seem like good objects, but only one is the best.  In case you are unclear, God is the best not you.

What do I mean by holiness?  Well, the fact is marriage is tough business.  It roughs you up.  Anyone with half an ounce of humility will tell you that marriage quickly reveals your selfishness.  If you are seeking happiness, you will easily find a way to justify your selfishness, because your spouse is just not making YOU happy!  And in time, you will find that YOU just aren’t happy in your marriage.  On the other hand, suppose the same thing happens to someone who is seeking holiness.  The same selfishness initially rares its ugly head and considers what the other person should be doing to fix this thing that is making you unhappy, but then the Holy Spirit gently reminds us “submit to one another out of reverence to Christ” (Eph. 5:21), “overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21), “a gentle answer turns away wrath” (Prov. 15:1), “love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18), go the extra mile (Matt. 5:41), “the wife must respect her husband” (Eph. 5:33),  “husbands, love your wives” (Eph 5:25) etc.  Quickly, it becomes evident that to please God we must die to our selfish nature.  

So is happiness a bad thing to want?  No.  I just don’t know that it should be the end goal.  Think of it more as a side effect.  I can’t promise you that if you live to please God in your marriage you will be happy.  What I can say is countless people will tell you when they stopped trying to make themselves happy and sought a higher goal for their marriage they actually became happy in their marriage.  Please don’t misunderstand.  This is not a magic pill, overnight thing.  You are going to have to live it and live it for a while.  Dying to yourself is not easy.  But anything worth having is not easy.  Aim for the highest goal in your marriage; aim for holiness.