The Big Picture

As a detail person, I often need help with stepping back and seeing the big picture. My husband is just the opposite. He constantly sees the larger view and has trouble with details. Our differences can annoy us, but if we work it right, this conflict can create balance.

I notice how the Bible speaks to both viewpoints. I tend to find all the details and focus on those little things that concern God, but my husband sees the Lord’s broad plan. Between both perspectives, He intended that the details of our daily lives revolve around His eternal purposes.

My devotional reading for today is a big-picture answer to a question some Christians must have been asking about marriage. Should they or shouldn’t they? Was Christ coming soon? And if so, would they be better off to forget about being married?

Paul wrote that God had not given a command one way or another, however, he thought it would be more practical to not make any changes in their marital status because of “present distress.” That is, if a man was single, stay that way. If he was married, stay that way. Getting married was not a sin, yet in 1 Corinthians 7:29-33, he wrote:

But this I say, brethren, the time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be without care. He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord—how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world—how he may please his wife.

The big picture is that all of the things of this world will pass away. Life is but a blip in terms of eternity, and what we have here will not at all resemble what life will be like afterward. Paul’s concern was that we do things that please the Lord, and if getting married furthered that, fine. If it did not, it would be better to stay single.

Being married can take a person’s mind off serving God—if their spouse is what we sometimes call a “high maintenance” person. When my husband was not a believer, he did not understand my need for morning devotions or my desire to be with other Christians. Now that is changed. My husband loves and serves God and we can please the Lord together. We also know also that if one of us is pleasing God, then what we are should also please our spouse. In theory, there should be no conflict between pleasing Him and each other.

In theory, a big picture person and a detail person should be a team too, each filling in what the other lacks in how life is perceived. Anyone who is married knows that this is a great theory, but also knows that there is a third element that messes up the perfection of the combination. If we were not sinful creatures who like to have our own way, we would simple please God and one another all the time.

While we vacation together, I chuckle thinking about the difference between the first day out and the second. At first, I’m still in an independent mode as if he is at work all day and I am at home charting my own course. Snip, snip. All of a sudden I realize this isn’t going to work. I’ve another mind set to consider, to fit in with, and to (here comes that nasty word) submit myself to. As I get on with doing that, it isn’t long before I recognize that it actually is God that I must consider.

God wants me to be loving, helpful, kind, submissive—and a whole host of things that are not possible when I am by myself. The need to be like this comes out when I’m 24-7 with another person, particularly my husband, and particularly in a small and cramped bedroom with an odd bathroom across the hall, one sink, no hangers, and one of us is warm all the time and the other one chilly.

All these things help me understand what Paul was writing about. Of course it is easier to serve God when you don’t have to worry about pleasing a spouse, but what Paul didn’t write was that in pleasing a spouse, you learn how to please God.

The intimacy and intricacy of marriage is the perfect venue for practicing love, patience, understanding and submission. As I do these things for God first and for my husband, the challenges rub off the sharp points of my own selfishness and those sharp I-wants. If I stuck to my fleshy desires, it would ruin our vacation, never mind destroy any witness we might have as a couple to those around us.

We have an insecure and slightly annoying hostess, have met people with like interests and those with great stories to tell. We visited this morning with a couple from Scotland and because we have traveled there twice, we had much to talk about. In all of this, my husband and I need to be on the same page spiritually so that we are a blessing.

I’ve been around couples who were obviously sparring about something. With no harmony between them, they have nothing to offer anyone else. This certainly applies to us as Christians. Instead of pleasing and serving God and being a blessing to others, our ‘message’ would be useless, even harmful.

Paul was right in his view that marriage is a challenge and that it could be a distraction from pleasing God, but other Scripture and experience tell me that in facing this challenge with humility and total awareness of our need for grace and the fullness of His Spirit, we can please God, one another, and even bless those we meet.