So the first issue that couples deal with AFTER happily ever, is communication. A couple were in counseling one time and the counselor asked:
- Does your husband beat you up?
*No I beat him up by several hours every morning
- Do have a grudge?
*No we have a carport.
- What grounds do you have for your problems?
*We have about four acres.
- Why are you here?
*We can’t seem to communicate!
Why is communication so difficult?
The Bible teaches that in creation, God’s splits his image into a duality, male and female. And in marriage, he calls them back together into oneness to reflect God’s oneness. But becoming one with your spouse is hard because of sin and the curse that came with it.
- Women would demand to have control over their husbands
- Husbands would try to dominate their wives.
Every marriage has two sinners living in it. That’s a lot sin in one place. Add to the sin, the incredible differences and you have a situation that is ripe for communication degradation.
This make me wonder, why would God make us so different? When you think about it, this is the main crucible where we learn to love. Love is reaching, giving and self sacrificing. And so it’s the duality that makes communication so difficult but also makes love worth something.
We have some friends here this week from Malawi, and the native language there is called Chichewa. And it made me think of how we react to a person who speaks a foreign language: initially it’s quaint, and there’s admiration and even wonder. How can they make those sounds come out of their mouth… and so fast!
But then, if you’re stuck with this foreigner and you have to get somewhere together or do something together, it doesn’t take long for that admiration to degrade into something else. Frustration sets in…
- You’d never say it but, you start to look at that person as dumber than you are because you have to dumb down your own communication to get anything across to them.
- You start to look down on that person.
- And finally you start to avoid this person because even the simplest interactions are just too much work.
That same degradation happens in marriage. At first, there’s admiration for the different ways men and women communicate – wonder even. *"gosh, my boyfriend is just so... fixated... on sports! That’s so cute... (I can change that)..." It’s quaint and odd and entertaining. But not forever! Soon it’s frustrating, and judgment settles in. That person is defective! They’re insane even!
Well against this instinct the Bible commands husbands and wives to fight the uphill battle for the sake of love. For true love is never so much love as when it is serving and stooping and submitting and saving and seeking and sharing. God says:
- 1 Peter 3:7 Husbands , in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect.
- Eph 5:22 You wives will submit to your husbands as you do to the Lord.
You see there’s mutual giving that God requires in marriage that calls us to sacrifice. In fact, if any of you are disturbed that the specific instruction is for submission for wives, you need to realize that the level of sacrifice called for from husbands is even higher. In the same passage it says husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
You can’t get a higher calling to self sacrifice and submerging your own will for the good of the other, than that!
Next week, we’ll get into how words like submission and respect and love and consideration are keys to unlocking male and female communication… but for now, I want us to realize that the road of communication is opened by God first calling us to reach out.
- to bridge a communication gap, someone has to reach across a divide.
Saint Francis of Assisi was a great Christian thinker who wrote a prayer that encapsulates the starting point for great communication in marriage:
- O Divine Master,
- grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
- to be understood, as to understand;
- to be loved, as to love;
- for it is in giving that we receive,
- it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
- and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
I’m afraid that most marriage manuals today are an exercise in trying to extract self fulfillment out of the person you’re with, without making that person go away. You can see right away that God’s instruction is opposite. But you may say, what about me and my needs? Listen to the words of Assisi, they come straight from the teaching of the Master:
In giving you receive
In losing your life you will find it
I’m not of course condoning spousal abuse or neglect. But in most cases our mates will respond to self giving with awe and life change. And even if they don’t, God will. In most cases if we guard our hearts, if we preemptively withhold our affection until we get some, and ask what have you done for me lately – we will find ourselves protected but alone and miserable. We will find our lives and lose them at the same time.
Next week and with this idea of self-sacrificing love as the foundation for good communication, lets turn to reasons for miscommunication.
