The greatest season of the year is upon us. Helmets are in full bloom, the sound of human collisions will soon fill the air, and pot-bellied men everywhere will celebrate the physical exploits of others. This is when pigs reach their pinnacle, taking center stage in the second greatest role a pig could ever hope to achieve (all respect to thick sliced bacon and no offense to pulled pork) – life as a football.
Football has arrived, and it seems like men everywhere are turning as one towards the birth of a new season. This is the time when we look to eighteen year olds to bear our hopes. We relive last year’s could-have-beens and foreswear the possibility of future missed opportunities. For many of us, football becomes the focus of our attention, our thoughts, and our conversations.
Having walked-on at an SEC school my freshman year (the University of Alabama), I am an avid football fan. I poured my sweat and blood into a program that never even noticed my departure. That is how it goes and I am not bothered by it at all. I love my school, and am proud to cheer for them. So there will be no hidden Jesus juke in this post. I love football and am not the least bit bothered that millions of others do as well.
That being said, I would like to help you become a fan of something better, something greater than vicarious victory and more personal than institutional glory. I want you to become a rabid fan of marriage, and I want to help you do so.
Why Marriage?
Marriage is having a rough go of it right now. It is a lot like Notre Dame’s football team. Respect for that team used to be an expectation, but now people are chiding the institution for its overhyped status in the face of its obvious weakness. Marriage used to be respected, and getting into that institution used to be a badge of honor. But after the rise of divorce, and the subsequently destroyed childhoods, many people look far more warily at the institution. They wonder aloud if it is even worth pursuing.
For any Christian man, the answer to that question is an unequivocal yes!
Before mankind fell into sin, God created marriage when he created Eve, and the union of man and wife in sex became a central part of our purpose as God’s image bearers on Earth. This isn’t a post-fall, second string place holder; marriage was God’s plan for men and women from the very beginning.
You should pursue marriage, because in so doing, you pursue what God deemed good for you.
After the fall, our mandate to fill the Earth and subdue it remained, but we began to find more and more ways to muck it up as we moved along. Fast forward a few thousand years and we have the vast majority of young men and women in the United States trying to enjoy the union of sex without the goodness of marriage, because we convinced ourselves it is something from another age, for people far different than us.
But it is not. I will give you three quick, awesome results marriage will have in your life, and then I want to leave you with two action steps to become a fan of this wonderful gift God gave to mankind.
Now, if you want to learn to embrace Biblical Manhood with regard to marriage, here are two steps that will help any man move towards greater appreciation of marriage.
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Whitney Clayton is a husband, father, and disciple of Christ who currently serves as the executive pastor at The Bridge Community Church in Wilder, KY. He, his wife, and their two boys are in the process of planting a church in Phoenix, Arizona, so prayers are much appreciated! You can follow him on Twitter: @whitney_clayton or connect through his blog, Just Thinking.
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