Jay Lorenzen,
Political Science, retired,
Air Force Academy

[April 22]–

Laurie and I needed help. You’d think we would have figured this marriage thing out. It had been almost 30 years since we said ‘I do.’

We have four great kids, several grandkids on the way and a deep desire to walk with God. But we had grown lazy. The upstream pursuit of an academic career seemed to require all the energy I had.

We know the drill: research, publication, teaching, departmental recognition, and tenure. Those upstream destinations became the most important pursuits. Wisdom dulled. While we were working upstream, the river of years was carrying us downstream to a port where an “ok” marriage seemed all we could hope for. We needed help.

Timothy and Kathy Keller’s book, The Meaning of Marriage, put some perspective back for us. It began to re-hone wisdom. And to resist the passing current, it put marriage oars into our hands.

Hard But Glorious

First, marriage is “hard, but it’s also glorious. God intends marriage to be an adventure worth the blood, sweat, and tears.” And no adventure just happens. Laurie and I couldn’t take our marriage for granted; floating lazily downstream doesn’t work.

You have to work at marriage. When you do, the Kellers reminded us, God works through the humbling defeats and the exhausting victories to get a marriage to mysteriously display His glory and His Kingdom to the world. As Christ-followers, we realized again that our lives individually and together in marriage have one ultimate pursuit—the loving rule and reign of King Jesus

A Powerful Thing

Second, perspective is a powerful thing. Often those upstream ports for which I was striving were destinations to receive the glory and plant the flag of my small kingdom.

I’ll never escape the clash of kingdoms. My small claustrophobic kingdom of self constantly wars against the big sky Kingdom of God. Recognizing that kingdom clash within me enables me to see my academic career more clearly—indeed all of life more clearly. If I reach the port of academic glory only to find my marriage existing at the downstream port of “ok,” I’ve robbed a central life partnership from reflecting the image of God to the world. For me, taking the oars of marriage and family in hand meant making tough, career-shaping decisions.

Best Friend

Third, in reading Keller’s book, Laurie and I discovered one particular point that we wished we’d seen more clearly.

When God brought the first man his spouse, he brought him not just a lover but the friend his heart had been seeking . . . The very best human friendship possible for that adventure of becoming our true-selves (the person we were created to be) is with the lover-friend who is your spouse.*

When our spouse becomes not just lover and financial partner but our best friend, we move toward adventure and fulfillment–a journey where we help each other become our glory-selves, the new creations that God will eventually perfect.

Parker Palmer once described teaching as the “pursuit of truth in the company of friends.” Laurie and I are (re)discovering that marriage can be the “pursuit of life and adventure in the company of a best friend.” If we’d known it earlier, the years of floating downstream might have been fewer. We’re thankful now to take the oars in hand and work upstream toward both a better and more fulfilling marriage.
(c) 2012 Jay Lorenzen