The Big Picture

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Matthew 6:33

SCENE 1: WHILE ON A FAMILY VACATION IN HAWAII, LISA WAS LOOKING AT ME as if I had just lost my mind. We had woken up very early that morning to go snorkeling, and everyone was feeling pretty tired by early afternoon. When I realized we had a few hours before we planned to be anywhere else, I announced that I intended to squeeze in a run.

“It’s ninety degrees out!” Lisa exclaimed. “And the humidity is brutal. You want to kill yourself?” She couldn’t understand why I wanted to pound the hot pavement instead of lie on the beach.

Scene 2: July 4th, back in Bellingham, Washington. Though I really love fireworks, I volunteered to stay home and do the dishes and watch our terrified dog while Lisa and the kids found a strategic place to view the city fireworks. As I lay next to our golden retriever (something that happens only on the Fourth of July), I heard the “grand finale,” the cascade of explosions signifying the end of the show, and it dawned on me: I had just missed something I really enjoy seeing.

What was going on?

A greater dream fueled both scenarios. For a good bit of my adult life, I’ve harbored the dream of completing a marathon. Now that I’m in my forties (a fact my body reminds me of almost daily), I realized that if I didn’t get this done soon, it would only become increasingly difficult. So I joined a local training group that prepared weekend athletes to run the Seattle Marathon. I followed their training schedule religiously—even in Hawaii.

I missed the fireworks because I had planned to do a group run early the next morning—July 5—and I thought that if I stayed up late, I wouldn’t be ready to do a hard training run.

Because I had the bigger picture in mind—finishing a marathon—the little sacrifices barely registered. The fact that the thermometer in Hawaii registered ninety degrees didn’t carry as much weight as the fact that I needed to get in an hour run that day. The fact that I enjoy fireworks and would really miss them didn’t even register until I heard, through the walls, what I was missing because I had been so focused on accomplishing this one goal.

If we ever lose the “bigger picture” in our marriages, we’re headed for trouble. The big picture—glorifying God—will keep us from becoming consumed by the regular challenges marriage presents to our comfort. We become obsessed with not getting to do what we want to do or with our obligations, and soon that’s all we see. But when we keep the big picture in mind, we willingly endure the difficulties because the greater good—the future good—is even more important to us.

When we keep the big picture in mind, we willingly endure the difficulties.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve reminded myself of one of the most important verses in the Bible: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). When I strive to put God’s kingdom first and focus on growing in his righteousness, it amazes me how quickly everything else falls into place.

Living in a marriage is sort of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You can become so myopic—just examining individual pieces—that occasionally you need to take a step back and look at the picture on the cover of the box to remind yourself exactly what you’re trying to create. Likewise, we can become so fixated on the problems and challenges of marriage that we miss the ultimate purpose of every believer’s life: seeking first—above all else—God’s kingdom, and growing in righteousness and godly character.

A person who married solely for the sake of his or her marriage won’t last if the marriage turns sour. If your primary purpose in being married is to be happily married, what will keep you in that marriage when your relationship becomes tough or distant or less than satisfying?

But when you decide to stay married to glorify God and to become more holy in his sight by remaining joyfully married to a sinner, you tend to view the smaller sacrifices as merely steps along the way to a much greater and glorious purpose. I didn’t run in ninety-degree heat with high humidity because I considered it fun; I ran in sweltering weather because I wanted to complete a marathon several months later. I gave up watching fireworks in July because I had focused on what would happen in November—the Seattle Marathon.

Author and educator Elton Trueblood once made this insightful observation:

Family solidarity takes hard work, much imagination and constant self-criticism on the part of all the members of the sacred circle. A successful marriage is not one in which two people, beautifully matched, find each other and get along happily ever after because of this initial matching. It is, instead, a system by means of which persons who are sinful and contentious are so caught by a dream bigger than themselves that they work throughout the years, in spite of repeated disappointment, to make the dream come true.^a

Such a view will carry us through the challenges marriage regularly brings our way.