“A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. Christ, because he was the only man who never yielded to temptation, is also the only man who knows to the full what temptation means - the only complete realist.” -CS Lewis |
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No marriage seminars will tell you this, but Luther will: marriage is like a hospital. You won’t find the metaphor understandable or appealing until you realize that you are sick and that you need to be healed. Here’s how Luther put it:
The temptation of the flesh has become so strong and consuming that marriage may be likened to a hospital for incurables which prevents inmates from falling into graver sins.
Luther biographer Roland Bainton picks up another metaphor in his writings:
"After his own marriage Luther’s tone shifted to a stress upon the home as a school for character. It is the area where the Christian virtues find their readiest exemplification, and, whereas in Catholicism monasticism is the sphere for the cultivation of the counsels of perfection, in Protestantism the home is as it were a functional substitute."Both metaphors—a school and a hospital—signal the important role of marriage as an agent of sanctification and rehabilitation. Our selfishness and pride are exposed. And if we respond in God-honoring humility, marriage can be used by God to cleanse us of our sin. The shift away from the monastic metaphor is also significant, for it signifies that marriage is never a purely private affair. Christian marriage is not to be of the world, but it must certainly be in the world.
"Oh death, thou destroyer of domestic felicity, could not this wide world afford victims sufficient to satisfy thy cravings, without entering the family of a silitary few, whose comfort and happiness depeneded much on the society of of each other? But thou hast come, clothed in thy usual garb, thou wast sent by a kind Father, to release his child from toil and pain. Be still, and know that God has done it." -Ann Judson, page 159She basically starts out by saying, Oh, death! Destroyer of happiness. Why us! Out of all the people in the world! And she ends with the hard to say words "Be still, and know that God has done it." Everytime I read this I cry, because I just hope that I would be able to speak these words with the same meaning.
The tendency to avoid difficulty is a grave spiritual failing that can and often does keep us in Christian infancy. The great spiritual writers warned that this life is difficult and that we should use the difficulty to build up character.
William Law, an eighteen century Anglican writer, asks, "How many saints has adversity sent to Heaven? And how many poor sinners has prosperity plunged into everlasting misery?"
John Climacus, who wrote the Eastern classic on the Christian faith in the fifth century, mocks our demand to have it easy and to shun struggle: "I would not consider any spirituality worthwhile that wants to walk in sweetness and ease and run from the imitation of Christ."
Jesus promised us that everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice seasoned with salt (Mark 9:49). The desire for ease, comfort, and stress-free living is an indirect desire to remain an "unseasoned," immature Christian. Struggle makes us stronger; it builds us up and deepens our faith.
But this result is achieved only when we face the struggle head on, not when we run from it. Gary and Betsy Ricucci point out, "Our Lord has sovereignly ordained that our refining process take place as we go through difficulties, not around them. The Bible is filled with examples of those who overcame as they passed through the desert, the Red Sea, the fiery furnace, and ultimately the cross. God doesnt protect Christians from their problems, but he helps them walk victoriously through them.
