We did not walk out romance and our dating life perfectly, by any means. We both walked through real immaturity, inexperience, and conflict—together. One thing that we worked on together was enjoying the romance and the journey of falling in love with one another while keeping the big picture of the rest of our lives before us. The great joy of romance is the thrill of new-found, growing love that touches and awakens deep places in the heart. The great danger of romance is the temptation to cast aside restraint to simply live for the moment. We can become led by—even driven by—our emotions and desires in ways that can be very costly. How the person we are falling in love with makes us feel—and not whom Jesus says they are and where He wants to take them—begins to govern the relationship if we are not careful.
The great challenge of romance is to enjoy it as a gift from the Lord without elevating it above the Lord. We want Jesus to continue to govern our values and vision, which empowers us to govern our emotions and maintain a godly perspective. We do not want to be governed by the fear of being alone, the fear of rejection or the fear of failure. We want to be governed by the love of Jesus and the power of His gospel as we seek to grow in love for the person we are interested in marrying. As we do, we can grow in a prophetic spirit and a servant’s heart for them as we gain understanding about how Jesus loves them, what He thinks about them, and how He made them to love Him back.
Jesus’ Vision for Marriage
How then do we make such a huge decision? As we begin to grow in understanding of the love of Jesus, it is easier to grow in our understanding of His vision for our marriage. Allowing our vision for marriage to originate in the heart of Jesus is so liberating and exhilarating! When Jesus has the idea, then He provides the resource and the power to bring it to pass. We do not have to fear that we will miss out or choose the wrong person. Jesus is committed to transforming our definition and understanding of the right person, which makes it really hard to follow our hearts to the wrong place.
Jesus’ vision for marriage is found in Eph. 5:15–33, as Paul describes what it means to “walk circumspectly” (carefully) in the fear of the Lord, understanding His will. In that passage, He calls us to “[be] submissive to one another in the fear of the Lord.” In the very next passage, he calls wives to “be submissive to [their] husbands.” I find that husbands, in particular, focus on the what of this passage without considering the why of Paul’s assertion. What is Paul asking wives to submit to?
The answer is found in more than a call to submit to a person but rather in a call to submit to a process. Wives are invited to submit to a process within marriage whereby husbands love their wives “just as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Paul is gospel-oriented in the way that he views marriage. In the same way that Christ loved us first—empowering us to respond and love Him back—husbands are to be the ones who love first in marriage in a way that empowers wives to confidently trust their leadership and love well in return. In conflict, in disagreement, in serving, in giving, the husband is commanded to love first in a way that establishes a safe context for his wife to love him back.
Another part of the process is the command that the husband love freely—with no thought of what he gains in the exchange. Whether or not his wife loves him back, a husband is called to love sacrificially. He is to give all of his heart to honor, cherish, and value the one whom God has joined him to, regardless of behavior, circumstance, or emotions in the moment. The commitment of the husband to his bride must be defined by something greater than the behavior of his wife. In the same way that the husband is loved freely by Jesus, he is to be empowered to love his bride.
Finally, the husband is invited to love his bride fully—fighting for her destiny and future with all of his might and resource. A husband does not have to fight for his own destiny—Jesus is fighting for him with great grace and fierce loyalty. Thus a husband is free to fight for his bride and the godly desires of her heart. He does not view his wife as a resource to make his life work or to make his calling great. He is free to view his bride through the eyes of Christ and, by grace, fight for what Jesus envisions.
Janet Perez Eckles 
Shawn Akers 
Abby Trivett 
