To Make Her Holy

Just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy.

Ephesians 5:25–26

WHEN AIR TRAVEL RESUMED AFTER THE 9/11 TERRORIST ATTACKS IN THE UNITED States, commutes got a lot more difficult. Gone were the days when I could show up at our small regional airport thirty minutes before my flight. In fact, the airline I usually fly closed down all flights from Bellingham, meaning I now have to drive ninety miles to the Seattle airport.

To wait in lines.

To be asked to take off my shoes and walk in my socks through a metal detector.

To have a complete stranger open my suitcase, riffle through my underwear, and ask me what a particular medication is for (I’m not kidding). How I could possibly bring down or hijack an airplane with sinus medication (“Get back; I’ve got Tylenol, and I’m not afraid to use it!”) is beyond me, but there you have it.

I grew irritable at the constant harassment. I just wanted to get through the airport, catch my flight, and reach my destination.

Several months later, Lisa was traveling with me to go to a conference—the first time we had flown together after the attacks. Lisa saw the brusque way I pushed through the airport, the lack of grace evident in my life as I muttered under my breath, and my overall demeanor—and she was appalled.

“Gary, would you just dial it back a bit? I’ve never seen you like this. What’s the matter with you?”

I thought about what she said and realized she was right. I had become a practical atheist. I wasn’t praying for people I saw. I wasn’t looking for ministry opportunities. I was trying to survive—and doing so with a mean and critical spirit. Biblically, I believe a Christian without a mission is only half a Christian, but that’s exactly what I had become—at least in the airport.

All that changed over the next several trips. Because Lisa had held up a mirror to my sin, I started praying for people I passed. I tried to be open to any opportunities where God might want to use me. And a certain joy entered my life, even while traveling.

I’m so thankful for this mirror God has given me in my wife. Please don’t resent it when your spouse brings up an area that really does need to be addressed. We become blinded to our faults all too easily, and our spouses, who know us best, can lovingly point them out.

Please don’t resent it when your spouse brings up an area that really does need to be addressed.

God calls believers to grow in righteousness: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22–24). In the original Greek, the “putting off” is in the aorist tense—it is done once for all. But the “being made new” is in the present tense—it’s an ongoing action. Marriage can feed this like nothing else.

In fact, Paul says that Christ loved the church by giving himself up for her “to make her holy” (Ephesians 5:26). If your spouse is a believer, she or he is your sister or brother in Christ; as fellow believers, we’re called to encourage each other to grow in character. We express our love by being part of the ongoing process of renewal and growth in righteousness.

I’m so thankful that Lisa spoke up at the airport and continues to speak the truth in love. I’m grateful that her love for me is strong enough to confront me. I’d be a lesser man if I weren’t married to her.

In her book The Good Marriage, psychologist Judith Wallerstein drew this wonderful conclusion:

A good marriage, I have come to understand, is transformative. The prevailing psychological view has been that the central dimensions of personality are fully established in childhood. But from my observations, men and women come to adulthood unfinished, and over the course of a marriage they change each other profoundly. The very act of living closely together for a long time brings about inner change, not just conscious accommodation. . . . As the men and women in good marriages respond to their partners’ emotional and sexual needs and wishes, they grow and influence each other. The needs of one’s partner and children become as important as one’s own needs. Ways of thinking, self-image, self-esteem, and values all have the potential for change.^a