The Key To Marriage Longevity

I like to devote Sunday posts to relationships and marriage and often feature one of my contributing writers, Joe Beam, chairman of marriagehelper.com.  Currently, Joe is heavily involved in his crisis marriage seminars, one of which is being held this very weekend, so I am sharing from other wonderful resources while Joe devotes himself to his ministry.

The following 5-minute video on marriage is one that I think is well worth watching. It is a basic truth but one that is lost on many today in a culture that is quick to encourage divorce when things get difficult (and in any marriage, things will get difficult).

Tim Keller, John Piper, and D.A. Carson have a short roundtable discussion about the key to marriage longevity. These men, well-known leaders in the Christian faith, have been married to their wives for 42 years (Piper), 37 (Keller), and (37) Carson. With humility and an occasional dose of humor, they share the one and only “glue” that will hold two imperfect people together for the long haul and through seasons of change for both better and worse.

If you don’t have time to watch the video, here a few takeaways.

1. “The covenant from this day forward sustains the love – not the love [that sustains] the covenant.”  These words were spoken by Dietrich Bonhoeffer to a couple whom he was about to marry.

2. “Feelings” of love and affection ebb and flow, but the covenant promise to one another is what will remain constant through seasons of change.

3. Each person in a marriage changes multiple times over the course of time. The ages and stages of life affect us all, and we do not stay the same. In marriage, the only constant is the covenant promise to remain together through it all.

4. The covenant of marriage is designed by God and exists for God. Persevering through hard times and honoring the covenant will ultimately result in a renewed and even stronger love. Piper refers to this as “a re-falling in love over and over again.”