Is Marriage Compromise?

11/12/10…Part of my definition of marriage is this; Marriage is two selfish people coming together trying to learn how to be unselfish. It is not about compromise as so many people have told me over the years. In compromise, neither party wins, therefore both parties lose. And in the process of losing, both parties begin losing part of their souls because neither one is really living life. Each is giving something up they did not want to give up to begin with, but instead settled.

 

Indeed, is compromise what Christ wants of me? I do not think so. Christ wants all of me with nothing held back. After all, the greatest commandment is to love Him with all my heart, mind and soul. This equates to passion. To speak of compromise means to speak of the lukewarm. Neither hot nor cold. In Revelation, did Christ not say he would rather spit us out then embrace lukewarmness?

 

So why have so many people over the years told me marriage is about compromise. It is not. It cannot be. For anyone to tell me that, I would raise this question. Are they living life or just putting on a façade that compromise is what makes them happy because they cannot face the reality of what has become. I write of what I know. My soul died in my first marriage in part because of what I write about and the fact God was nowhere in my life. In the end she spit me out because as a husband I was lukewarm.

 

Back then, I compromised but even in the compromise, I was focused on the wrong things. What do I mean? Well, back then compromise meant not buying something I wanted, not going somewhere I wanted to go, not cultivating hobbies, not doing something I wanted to do, etc. Notice a common theme here. I do, as in no mention of God. Indeed, there was something missing.

 

Fast forward fifteen years. What does compromise mean to me now? Not spending alone time with God, not in community with others, not finding a way to glorify God as He leads me, not going on retreats to refresh me, etc. Notice a common theme here. I do and God is the center. The theme now is so different than the one fifteen years prior. I can only learn to be unselfish when my relationship with God is loving Him with nothing held back. God has to be first. It is the only way I will be living with passion in my life. Passion with my God results in passion with my wife. Together, we are then one. Indeed God may steer me away from what I think compromise is right now, but I will only learn this through my intimate relationship with Him.

 

After writing my reflections on this topic, the most profound realization to me is this. Nowhere in passion do I sense the word compromise because in passion compromise does not exist. It cannot. Passion dies when we begin compromising.