God-centered Living

Introduction

Marriage is one of the richest and most meaningful parts of life. For both the religious and the secular, committed romantic relationships between a man and a woman shape much of how we understand love, purpose, and stability. Marriage — and the family it forms — stands at the foundation of any coherent society. That is no accident. Throughout history, people across every culture have attached profound significance to marriage. Its meaningfulness is undeniable.

But what exactly does it mean?

The Bible opens with a wedding.
In the Garden of Eden, at the climax of creation’s crescendo, God brings a man and a woman together in covenant union (Gen. 2). He presents Eve to Adam, not merely to solve Adam’s loneliness, but to reflect something deeper: the intimate, faithful, joy-filled, relational love that lies at the very heart of God Himself. And a relational love that is foundational for understanding reality.

The Bible also ends with a wedding.
At the culmination of history, the Church — the redeemed Bride — is brought to Christ, the Bridegroom, at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19). There will be one perfect union that will never end. All glory will be shared and rejoiced in. Everything will be pure and new. Every longing will finally be fulfilled.

So, if the Bible opens with a wedding and closes with a wedding, I think it’s safe to say that this is quite an important theme and that, perhaps, the whole thing might just be in some way about a wedding. If this is the case, we better make sure that we correctly understand the meaning behind marriage and hold it in its proper place.

Between Genesis and Revelation, the story of Scripture is a love story — not merely a sentimental romance, but a fierce, covenantal pursuit involving unthinkable sacrifice and redemption. It is the story of a faithful God loving, redeeming, and perfecting an unfaithful people at infinite cost, to present them to Himself in splendor and joy. It portrays love on the grandest possible scale. That is the great marriage that is being pointed to. Everything else in scripture is supporting and pointing toward it.

So, because of this, human marriage and romantic love between people is not ultimate in life but rather an indispensable part of our lives that points to a much greater reality. It is a living parable meant to teach us profoundly about the dynamic that lies at the heart of our existence. It is a precious picture, but it is not the thing itself.

Because marriage carries so much symbolic weight, it is both a gift and a danger.
It is easy to mistake the picture for the reality. To elevate the signpost above the destination.
To treat romantic love as heaven itself, rather than the arrow that points our hearts toward heaven.

If we are to love wisely, we must learn to cherish marriage for what it truly is: a preparation, a practice, a picture.

Marriage is meant to tune our hearts to the frequency of the greater love story we were created for — the union of God and His people.
And the way we engage with marriage now will either help us long for our true home — or pull our hearts further away, making heaven seem far off and unreal.

 Marriage as God’s Living Metaphor

When God created marriage, he was painting a very intentional picture — a living illustration of His relationship with His people. From the beginning, marriage was designed to be a covenantal union: a binding promise, a loyal pursuit, a complete offering up of oneself entirely. It was set up to be a powerful representation of God’s relationship to us—with God being the ever faithful and loving husband, despite a constantly wayward and unfaithful spouse.

This is why Scripture so frequently turns to marital language to describe God’s relationship with His people. In the Old Testament, God continually speaks lovingly and powerfully about Israel as His spouse:

“For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth He is called.” (Isaiah 54:5)

“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.” (Jeremiah 2:2)

“And I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord.” (Hosea 2:19-20)

And Jesus and the writers of the New Testament continue this same affectionate language in reference to God’s people:

“And Jesus said to them, ‘Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’” (Matthew 9:15)

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
(Ephesians 5:31–32)(emphasis added)

And the great future hope set before us is not merely the salvation of individual souls to some personal bliss, but a wedding — a collective, eternal union between Christ and His redeemed Bride. A true feast of joy, intimacy, and perfect communion shared between God and His people.

Human marriage, and the family it produces, is not the end of things. Human marriage and love between people, though wonderful, is not the greatest meaning in life. It simply contains the echo of the thing our souls were really made for. It is a faint foreshadowing of a much greater reality. It gently ignites a spark in us now of a cosmic glory that will perfectly electrify us in the future.

When we approach marriage — whether in singleness, in longing, in joy, or even in sorrow — we must remember:
this was always meant to be a metaphor.
A beautiful, costly, painful, glorious living metaphor pointing to a love greater than we can now fully comprehend.

If our marriage now is great, it serves as a helpful reference point to imagine how much greater the real marriage we were meant for will be. If our marriage is disappointing or frustrating, we can still take heart, because we know that it is not the ultimate goal of our existence, and our real hope cannot be taken from us if we are in Christ. If we are desperately single, and ache to be married someday, we can relax in our waiting, because we simply have more capacity to fix our unabated attention on preparing for the real marriage.

By keeping our heart’s attention on the real thing, and using our current human relationships as preparation and learning opportunities, we not only will increase our ability to set our hope on our eternal marriage and to feel its weight more tangibly even now, but we also will be able to truly capitalize on the enjoyment of our closest human relationships.

If we have our gaze fixed on the primary goal, then the precious picture that we have of that now will be serving its intended purpose. By serving its intended purpose—with its meaning tethered to the real thing—it will bring us more joy than it ever could on its own. If we really are aiming at the heavenly marriage, we will get a great marriage thrown in now as a delightful bonus. But if our hearts are truly set on human marriage now as our greatest joy and our greatest goal in life, then we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Setting our hearts on marriage and family to meet all our deepest longings for joy and relationship will eventually suffocate us. Humans are sinful. Humans continually let each other down. Human relationships can be taken away at a moment’s notice. If we set our hope on people, we are exposing ourselves to harm and doing a gross disservice to the great reality we were made for. When human romantic love holds the highest place in our hearts, we are heaping a great weight upon it that it was never meant to bear.

It is like a pickup truck trying to pull a semi. The pickup may be powerful and — under the right conditions — might even seem up to the task temporarily, but it will inevitably fail over time. When conditions are not perfect—and life never is—the pickup will fall apart, run itself into the ground, and potentially be crushed. Pickups are often hauled by tractor trailers — but never the other way around. And so it is with marriage: it is a gift to be carried along by something greater, not a vehicle meant to bear the full weight of your soul.

Marriage matters immensely.
But it matters because it is preparation.
Because it is practice.
Because it is a picture.

Marriage is a precious gift, but we should cherish the gift precisely because it teaches us to long for the real thing—the Giver of all gifts.

Cherishing the Picture, Longing for the Person

In clearing up our thinking about human marriage and the greatest goal of the universe, let’s consider another analogy that might help us hold these things rightly in our hearts and minds:

Imagine a soldier in a distant war — before the days of video calls, instant messaging, and the rest of modern communication.
As he marches through foreign lands and faces the horrors of battle, he carries with him a photograph: a simple, weathered picture of his sweetheart back home.

That picture becomes one of his most treasured possessions.
He looks at it before falling asleep in a cold tent.
He clutches it when fear grips him.
He finds strength in its reminder of love, of promises made, of the life he longs to return to.

The photograph is precious because it points to a precious reality.
It is not the person he loves — but it is the representation of her, and so it stirs his heart, gives him hope, and fuels his perseverance.

Now imagine the war finally ends.
The soldier steps off the ship and onto home soil.
He scans the crowd anxiously — and then he sees her. His sweetheart.

She runs toward him.
He drops everything and catches her in his arms.

In that moment, the photograph is no longer his treasure.
It has served its purpose.
The image has given way to the reality.
He no longer clings to the picture because he now holds the person.

If the photograph were lost at that moment, he would not mourn — because the longing it symbolized has been fulfilled.

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This is how marriage functions in God’s story. This is how all earthly relationships, and indeed all earthly joys, are meant to function.

Our earthly marriages — beautiful, difficult, imperfect — are given to us as pictures of a greater love. They are meant to stir our hearts, to point our eyes forward, to teach us valuable truths about covenant loyalty and personal communion.

But they are not the end.

When Christ returns — when the Bridegroom finally embraces His Bride — we will not mourn the loss of earthly marriage.
We will rejoice, because the real Marriage will have begun.

The picture will have served its purpose.
The longing it awakened will be fulfilled.

And if we truly understand this, it should change how we live now.

We must cherish the picture without mistaking it for the reality. We must honor marriage without idolizing it. We must enjoy earthly love while remembering that it was always meant to prepare us for a greater, truer love.

As Paul writes:

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
(1 Corinthians 13:12)

Marriage now—rightly understood—is a part of the mirror, the picture, the foretaste.
Christ Himself is the face we were made to behold.

And when He appears, we will not cling to the shadows any longer.
We will run into His arms — and finally, we will be home.

The Danger of Idolizing the Picture

It is easy — far too easy — to cherish the photograph more than the person it points to.

Our hearts are naturally prone to cling to the visible, the tangible, and the immediate.
We long for love, for intimacy, for belonging — and marriage, in its beauty and depth, seems to offer the best taste of these things.

But if we are not careful, we can begin to treat marriage not as a signpost pointing us toward Christ, but as the ultimate destination itself. This is idolatry.

We may not think it looks like idolatry. We may see it as unselfish, good family values, personal dedication. But if we elevate human romance to the highest place in our hearts — if we see marriage as an end goal of life rather than a means to a greater end — we have misplaced our hope. We have made something our functional god other than the one true Living God.

And misplaced hope always leads to sorrow.

“The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply…” (Psalm 16:4)

If we idolize marriage:

• We will demand from our spouse (or future spouse) what only God can provide.
• We will view singleness or delayed marriage as a personal tragedy rather than a temporary calling.
• We will measure our worth and fulfillment by our romantic status rather than by our union with Christ.
• We will not be truly ready for the real wedding when it comes.

Earthly marriage, at its best, is still fragile. It is still stained by sin.
It is a precious gift — but it is a temporary one. Our earthly marriages now will not continue on into heaven.

“For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”
(Matthew 22:30)

But this should not be a great sadness for us. Though, I feel that unfortunately for many of us—it often is—especially if we are blessed with strong marriages. Often times, people are so enamored by their earthly spouse that they might even intentionally avoid thoughts about heaven, because they don’t want to consider a reality where they aren’t married to their spouse. This simply should not be. We will not be sad about this in heaven, so we should not be sad about it now.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that we will know our spouses in heaven. I don’t imagine that there is some sort of memory wipe when we get to heaven that erases our memories we shared with our closest family and friends on earth. This is just my assumption, but I think our closest family and friends on earth now will likely continue to be some of our closest relationships in heaven. But our relationships with our earthly spouses just won’t be marriage. Our union with God will be ultimate, and it will be perfectly fulfilling.

Earthly marriage is not eternal. It was never meant to be. It is a glorious preparation — but it will one day give way to the greater glory for which it was designed.

Preparing for the Real Wedding

If marriage is a signpost, if earthly love is the photograph and Christ is the reality, then how should we live now?

We are not left to guess. The Scriptures are clear: we are being prepared for a wedding.
The life we are living now is not simply what we make of it, nor is it about personal success, career achievements, or even earthly family success.
After we have come to saving faith in Christ, we have begun an engagement. We essentially enter into a season of pre-marital counseling — training, shaping, and refining for the day we meet our true Bridegroom face to face. We want desperately to be ready for the big day.

In earthly weddings, the period of engagement is meant to be a time of preparation. We are growing in our love for one another, learning to trust one another, planning to combine every part of life with them, and excitedly anticipating the experience of our future life together.

In the same way, the Christian life is a time of preparation. We are to be growing in holiness, separating ourselves from everything else vying for our heart’s attention, and learning to trust and surrender everything in life to the one who is exceedingly capable of caring for our deepest longings and desires.

Every act of obedience, every decision to cling to Christ when the world offers easier loves,
strengthens our capacity for joy at the true Wedding.

Every trial endured in faith, every earthly sorrow borne with hope,
teaches our hearts to long more deeply for the union that will never end.

The writer of Hebrews reminds us:

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland… they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”
(Hebrews 11:13–16)

We are not home yet.
The engagement is not the marriage.
The picture is not the Person.

But the day is coming.

As the true Wedding approaches.
Let us be found ready.

Conclusion: Longing for the Bridegroom

Marriage is a gift. It is a sacred, beautiful, costly treasure. But it was never meant to be the treasure itself. It is a picture — precious, heart-stirring, filled with meaning — but not the real embrace.

The real embrace is coming.

When Christ returns, we will not mourn the loss of earthly marriage.
We will not clutch the picture desperately.
We will run to the arms of the One for whom our souls were made.

The greatest love story of history — the story of a faithful God redeeming and uniting a broken people — will finally reach its glorious consummation.

In light of that day, we must ask ourselves hard questions even now:

• Am I living as if the picture is the end goal?
• Have I placed my ultimate hopes on earthly romance, earthly marriage, earthly dreams?
• Or am I using every good gift to fuel my longing for the Giver?
• Am I cherishing marriage for the way it points me to Christ — or am I clinging to marriage itself?

We were not made for earthly weddings.
We were made for the Wedding.

If you are married now, cherish your spouse deeply — but remember that your marriage is meant to point your hearts forward, not anchor them here.

If you are single now, do not believe the lie that you are missing out on life’s greatest blessing.
If you are in Christ, you are already engaged to the greatest Bridegroom of all.
And He is coming soon.

If you are disappointed now—longing, struggling, enduring — hold on.
The engagement is almost over.
The true Marriage is near.

One day soon, the sky will crack open.
The trumpet will sound.

The photograph will fall from our hands —

and our arms will be filled with Christ Himself.

“Let us rejoice and exult and give Him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His Bride has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7)