Your Marriage Can't Survive on What's Left Over - Marriage, Family & Mandate - Part 1

Before we can talk about marriage, family, and Mandate, we must first understand what marriage is according to God’s original design.
In this introductory episode, we take a step back to define marriage from a biblical perspective. We look at why marriage was God’s idea, what His purpose for marriage is, and why marriage must be built on more than feelings, culture, or tradition.
We also discuss three marriages that have been commonly practiced: contemporary marriage, traditional marriage, and biblical marriage. While contemporary marriage often focuses on personal fulfillment, and traditional marriage may focus mainly on roles and expectations, biblical marriage is rooted in covenant, purpose, partnership, and God’s design.

This episode lays the foundation for the rest of the series on marriage, family, and mandate, helping us see why the kind of marriage we build matters.
Marriage works best when it is built according to God’s blueprint, not just human opinion, cultural pressure, or emotional desire.

Listen, reflect, and act where you need to. Comment and follow.
What kind of marriage are you building? Contemporary, traditional, or biblical?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

When was the last time you sat down? Really sat down with your spouse. Not to talk about the kids, not to go over your calendar or to figure out who's speaking who and from where. I mean just to be together. If you had to think about that for a moment, this series is for you. Hello and welcome to Truth Talk about life and leadership solutions, a place where I help you navigate life, family, and career in a way that gives you peace and maximizes your potential. My name is Ijoma Anyao. Today I'm beginning a brand new series that are titled Marriage, Family and Mandate. So my husband and I have five children, from teenagers who keep me very aware of the age we are in, to young adults who are on their own journeys of discovering why they are here. We have served as missionaries for over three decades and have had opportunities in those times to serve as leaders within and outside of the mission circle. My desire through this series is to help you get clarity on these matters so you can thrive in your marriage, your family, and your career. Why is this conversation so urgent right now? Well, we are living in a time where marriage is under more pressure than perhaps any generation before us has known. And I'm not talking about pressure from the world alone. I'm talking about pressure from within the church, from within ministry circles, from within well-meaning, God-loving, purpose-driven families. Pastors are fumbling and their spouses are sitting in the front row smiling for the congregation while dying on the inside. Leaders and professionals are climbing every ladder in the industry and coming home to a marriage that has quietly become a roommate arrangement. Ministers are counseling other people's marriages on Sunday mornings while their own marriages are held together with spiritual sounding excuses and avoidance. And here is the saddest part. Many refuse to acknowledge these things. They live in denial. Because most of us have this mindset that when you are doing great things, kingdom things, purposeful things, it feels impossible that those things could be hurting your home. It feels like surely God would not let that happen. Surely if I'm busy for the Lord, He's watching over my life. Or if I'm busy for the family, then things must automatically work out. But God never asked for your marriage or mine as a sacrifice on the altar of our calling or career. So before I go further, let me distinguish those two words calling, career. Career is your chosen profession or your line of work aimed at earning an income for your family and achieving advancement, and is often driven by ambition and financial needs. Your calling, on the other hand, is a deeper sense of purpose, often viewed as a God-given mission or passionate pursuit that brings fulfillment and may not provide a paycheck. So calling is mission-oriented, focused on God-given passion and serving something larger. Hopefully, you can see where you stand as I talk. So back to marriage and your calling or your career. God designed these both to work together. And if we don't understand that, if no one sits us down to teach us that, we will spend our lives building platforms and losing our families, building congregations and losing our spouses, building legacies that look impressive from the outside while the foundation at home is cracking. I've watched it happen. I've talked to couples in the aftermath of it, and I've had to wrestle with it on my own journey. No one ever understands or aligns these two perfectly, if I may add. Because we all live in a fallen world. But with the right knowledge, a lot of potential damage could be avoided. The road could become smoother and the union more purposeful. And that is why we are having this conversation. Let me share something with you that I believe with everything within me. You cannot walk in the fullness of your calling or continue to show up confidently while your marriage is in chaos. I know that sounds bold, but listen. From the very beginning, from the very first pages of scripture, before there was a church, before there was a ministry structure, before there was any kind of organized mission or mandate, God established marriage. Now that was the first time that God would say, It is not good. Before then, everything else was good. And he didn't give him a ministry partner, he gave him a wife. Think about what that means. God in his infinite wisdom looked at the assignments that he was about to release on the earth, demanded to be fruitful, to multiply, to have dominion, and he said, This cannot be done alone. This requires a partner. This requires a covenant. You know, one of the things I've learned after almost three decades of being married, and in years of talking to couples who are trying to hold everything together, is that most of us step into marriage with a picture that was painted by someone other than God. For some of us, it was painted by our parents' marriage, good or bad. For some others, it was painted by culture, by romantic movies, or by what we saw in the church we grew up in. I, for one, read a lot of Mills and Booms and many other 17th and 18th century romantic novels where the guy comes and sweeps the woman away off her feet after a bit of a conflict. And so I had my version of what marriage should look like. Back then, most of the seminars will be like exclusively for married couples because the things being discussed, they will say they don't concern you as singles. You don't need to be thinking about those things. So I stayed, you know, with the blueprint I had from the books I had read. And since I was also raised in a single parent's home, there was no other blueprint to draw from. So I stepped into marriage with that blueprint, and it took me years to renew my mind. What did God actually have in mind when he created this thing called marriage? Because if we don't know what the original design was, we will spend our entire marriage trying to fix things we never fully understood. So when God created Adam, he placed him in a garden that was in every way perfect. There was provision, there was purpose, there was the very presence of God. And yet, God looked at this man who had everything and said, It is not good for him to be alone. That statement alone is loaded. In a perfect environment, in unbroken fellowship with God Himself, the absence of a companion was still considered not good. That tells us something profound. Marriage was not invented as a solution to loneliness, it was designed as a partnership for a purpose. So God didn't just give Adam a companion, he gave him a counterpart, someone who carried what he didn't have, who completed what he couldn't accomplish on his own. And so he created Eve. And he didn't create her from the ground like when he did Adam, but from Adam himself, from his side, close to his heart, as the old teachers used to say. And when God brought her to the man, Adam saw her and knowingly said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. He called her woman. So God established a very first institution on earth before government and the church and every other organizational structure we know today. He established marriage. And he went on to say that a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is God's idea of marriage. It's a covenant, not a contract. A contract is transactional. I give you this, you give that. And when one of us stops holding up our end, the deal is off. But a covenant is transformational. It says, I'm giving myself to you. Not based on performance, but based on commitment. It is exclusive between one man and one woman, and it is meant to be lifelong. And let me add that at its core, it is not primarily about happiness. Although God absolutely wants you and me to be happy, it is about wholeness. It is about two people becoming a unit, so unified, so submitted to God together that they can fulfill an assignment neither of them could fulfill alone. That's the marriage God instituted. And when we understand that, when we stop treating marriage as a milestone and start treating it as part of our calling and life's purpose, it changes everything. At least it did for me. Now let's go deeper into something that the church is not speaking nearly enough about. And it is that not every marriage you see around you, even among Christians, is operating from the same blueprint. And if you didn't know the difference, you will find yourself chasing a model that was never designed to take you where you need to be going. So, there are essentially three models of marriage that show up in our world today. And I wanted to walk with you through each one briefly. Not to judge anyone, no, no, but to give you clarity because clarity is one of the most powerful tools that you can receive on your journey towards progress and productivity. The first type of marriage is the traditional marriage. Now, this is the one most of us grew up watching. It has defined rules, typically the husband as provider and head, the wife as homemaker and nurturer. And for many generations, it was the dominant structure, particularly in the church. It's based on the traditions and culture of the land and the people. There is real beauty in this model when it's rooted in mutual respect and love. But the truth is, traditional marriage on its own can sometimes prioritize roles and man's tradition over relationship and purpose. It can look very organized on the outside, while the two people inside are spiritually, emotionally, socially, and intellectually disconnected. Because when the structure becomes more important than any other thing, you end up with a well-run household but a lonely, unfulfilling marriage. And that is not what God designed. Because in this marriage, it's about the husband. Now, this kind of marriage is now practiced mostly in Africa, Asia, and in the Mediterranean. The second kind of marriage is the contemporary marriage. Now, this is what much of modern culture celebrates. It is built on equality, individual fulfillment, and partnership. Two people supporting each other's goals, sharing responsibilities, evolving together. And again, there is something genuinely good in this. God absolutely values equality and mutual honor in marriage. Scripture is clear about that. But contemporary marriage, when it is disconnected from God, can drift into a place where marriage exists to serve the individual rather than the individual serving the marriage. When personal goals and personal happiness and personal advancement become the center of a marriage, the core of the marriage covenant becomes volatile. Because the moment the marriage stops making you feel fulfilled, the cultural permission to leave is already built in. And many enter with their eyes and hearts focused on that exit. This kind of marriage favors the wife more and is what we mostly see in the West. Then we have the third kind, which is the biblical marriage. This is not a stricter or more religious version of traditional marriage. No, it's something altogether different from its foundation. Biblical marriage is a covenant between a matu, emotional, stable man and woman, with God not just as a witness, but as the center. You see, marriage is too serious of a deal to step into it with too many emotional baggages. It's better to get healed before you step in because broken and hurting people hurt others. The biblical marriage is a marriage where both spouses are submitted not just to each other but to God, which means the decisions, direction, purpose, and definitions of success are filtered through his word and his will, not through cultural trends or personal preferences. It's a marriage where love is not primarily based on feelings, but is an act of one's will and a commitment to the other person, with his or her well-being and wholeness in mind. It's modeled after the way Christ loves the church, sacrificially, consistently, sanctifying her, cleansing her by the washing with the word, to present her to himself in glorious splendor without spot or wrinkle, but holy and set apart for God. It's a marriage built for kingdom legacy, not necessarily for comfort, convenience, or meeting of societal expectations or for status or financial benefits. It's not for personal aggrandizement, nor is it an escape route from family or societal pressure. The biblical marriage was established for purpose, companionship and multiplication, biologically, spiritually, and otherwise. It's a marriage built for kingdom advancement, and the purpose of this marriage is for neither the man or the woman, but for the glory of God. Now, why does knowing all of these matter for those of us who are desiring to honor the Lord in our lives and are pursuing our God-driven purpose through our careers? It matters because what you are building on determines the results you get. So if you are building from a traditional model alone, you will find that when life gets complicated, when your wife steps into your career or calling, for example, or when your husband needs you to stand alongside him in a new way, the rigid rules create conflict instead of a covering. Or if you are building from a contemporary model alone, you may find that when the assignment gets hard and the sacrifice gets real, there is no covenant strong enough to hold you both when your feelings don't cooperate. And I must tell you, no amount of feelings is strong enough to carry this marriage at such times. But if you are building from a biblical foundation, if God is genuinely the third chord in your marriage, then you have something that can withstand the winds that come against your marriage, your family, and your mandate. You have something that can survive the times and seasons of life. You have something that can grow stronger under pressure instead of cracking beneath it. As Christians who want to see our marriages, our families, and our calling and career all thrive at the same time, we cannot afford to be building on anything less than the foundation which has been already laid from the beginning. The blueprint matters. And it is never too late to pick it back up. And that right there is where I want to leave you today. Let me pray with you. Heavenly Father, thank you for every person who chose to listen to this talk today. Father, you know exactly who they are and you know exactly what brought them here. Whether it was curiosity or hunger or quiet desperation, thank you because nothing in their story surprises you. You know all things. Father, we ask that this message will touch lives today. Stare what needs to be stared and let it soften the ground that is hard from disappointment, exhaustion, or simply not knowing a better way to do things. For that couple listening, Father, breathe fresh life into their marriage. Remind them of what they chose in each other, and more importantly, remind them of what you chose when you put them together. Father, let this be the beginning of a new conversation in their home, an honest, healing conversation for every single person listening who may believe, protect their belief, and for those who have stopped believing in marriage altogether. Father, I ask that you be merciful and through your spirit, you continue to restore, restore what culture, pain, and broken examples have tried to take. Father, and for all of us, help us to build from the right blueprint. Help us to stop treating our marriages like they can survive on whatever is left over. Help us to have the courage to make the changes that love, real love, actually requires. Father, we trust you with our homes, we trust you with our callings, and we trust you to show us one day at a time how to hold them both well. Thank you, Father, for answered prayers in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining me for today's talk. If you have found this talk helpful, please share with others who need to hear. Also, rate it and follow. And if you are new to, please like and subscribe. But leave a comment below on how this talk has helped you. And I'll see you in part two. Bye-bye for now.