Bootcamp For The Kingdom

Marriage is boot camp for becoming sons and daughters of God. As with any good boot camp, the purpose of this one is to whip us into exceptional spiritual warrior shape in the space of a single lifetime. I think that we would agree that this is a pretty tall order for most of us. 

It’s easy to say that marriage is a boot camp, but what does that actually mean, especially for those of us who are still single? Well, why did God create marriage?

Did God create marriage to bring ultimate happiness to our lives? 

As singles, a lot of us have idolized marriage as the one thing that will bring us true happiness. I know I’ve done that, and I’m sure many of you have too. We think that perhaps God created marriage to give us fulfillment, or maybe it was for the purpose of pure romantic love. I know! I bet God gave us another person to live with to complete us! That’s got to be it! 

Or maybe not so much. 

There’s nothing wrong with happiness or fulfillment, but is that why God gave us marriage? 

This is an important question because it has the power to reshape the way we see marriage, which as a single, this also reshapes the way I see premarital relationships. If God did not create marriage to make us happy or complete, then there must be another purpose. 

Why is marriage boot camp for becoming sons and daughters of God?

When I say “boot camp,” what comes to mind? Is it air force boot camp? Guys doing push-ups and running in formation? 

This doesn't exactly accurately portray what I mean when I say “boot camp.” Anyone can complete basic training, and this training is for run-of-the-mill soldiers. No, what I mean when I say “boot camp” is BUDS. Hell week. The Navy seal boot camp. We aren’t meant to be run-of-the-mill soldiers; we are meant to be elite warriors! The difference between Seals and marines isn’t really physical, in fact, a lot of marines are quite a bit stronger than seals. The difference that sets seals apart from the regular soldier is mental. They have built up the mental toughness through fiery trials to get them through things that would stop a regular soldier. In us, this toughness is a strong character, and it is achieved through fire.

This elite warrior boot camp will break you down, strip you back to the bare person you are and then rebuild you into the image that the person training you wants you to match. In our case, it is the image of our master and commander, Jesus Christ. This is a process commonly called “becoming holy.” The idea of associating marriage with the process of becoming holy isn’t a common one, but it is an important one. 

To quote a famous author, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy rather than happy?” 

Marriage is hard. Really really hard, quite possibly the most difficult thing that any of us will ever do; thus, it takes a tremendous amount of hard work. A great marriage isn’t found; it’s made. You don’t get days off from being married; as the vows go, it’s until death do you part. I think that it is safe to say that becoming sons and daughters of God is our primary goal in this life, but it’s not an easy thing to do. It can’t be learned by sequestering ourselves in a convent somewhere. Sure, separation may keep us pure, but we will remain blank slates, never having had our layers stripped back and never being rebuilt into who we were really meant to be. We will have learned nothing about living with our fellow man. 

This is where we can begin to mix becoming sons and daughters of God with marriage.  Becoming children of God isn’t easy, but then getting married and raising a family wasn’t meant to be easy either, because “easy” doesn’t craft warriors. Marriage was given to us as a model, part of the map to becoming like Christ. It’s something that the whole Bible points to, yet we often fail to see it that way. We tend to view marriage as a way to propagate the human species and hopefully to have some happiness, but we rarely see it as a way of seeing who God wants us to be. We certainly don’t usually look at it as a device to make us holy. 

If we want a long and happy marriage, we need to find someone who is willing to grow as a person and as a Christian. In this alone is the opportunity for a semblance of happiness as a result of the union. No one is perfect, and no marriage is perfect. There are going to be flaws that both parties have to work on, but that’s part of the beauty of marriage because our spouses will reflect our flaws back to us in a way that will be far more visible and annoying than any other way. When we understand the marriage roles and how to treat our spouses as fellow heirs, as our brothers and sisters in Christ, then we can become who God wants us to be. Marriage teaches us how to honor, how to submit, and how to value our fellow Christians in a way that we would be unable to fully grasp if marriage did not exist. 

Marriage teaches us how to live and work with the opposite sex with no option to just walk away if things go poorly. It forces us to stay and work it out. There can be no split, and it teaches us how to create unity in the Church around us. When things don’t go well, we can’t just walk away. This is why it is vital for single people to learn and practice the principles of marriage, for they are the principles of a faithful Christian. They are the principles of learning how to guard our hearts and share them with another entity, just as we do with God.

We are building the Church of God, and with each generation, another layer is added to the wall. Building the family of God through having children is the noblest cause there is, yet it gets scorn and derision as second best from the world around us. 

Why? 

Simply put, we’ve got an enemy who would love nothing more than to destroy the traditional family and thus bring down the family of God. 

Satan hates godly families! 

A loving family is a spiritual stronghold, and the first source of its strength is a strong and godly marriage. The strength of a godly marriage stands out like a beacon in a world of dying marriages. It shines a beam to all who see it that the gospel message is ultimately about a marriage. A godly marriage shines with the glory of God and paints a picture of God’s plan for mankind. 

What plan? 

We were given marriage to stand as a physical model of Christ and the Church. God needed a way to teach us about His plan and to teach us valuable lessons about how to lead, how to submit, and how to love our fellow man. Our marriages show the world what Christ has planned for the Church. These tumultuous physical unions show the entire world the love God has for us. 

What love is this that is so self-sacrificing that it doesn’t care about filling one’s own needs as long as the needs of the other are unfilled? 

This is the love of Christ laying down His very life so that we might become one with Him. This is not selfish eros, no, this is pure, unconditional love that loved us while we were yet sinners, and it is what enables us to love our spouses while they are yet imperfect, just as we are imperfect. Marriage is about learning forgiveness. 

Our marriages are mirrors, and they hopefully reflect the glory of God and Christ’s love. Not just His love, however, but His mercy and forgiveness as well. Both of these are powerful and critical tools in any relationship, let alone marriage. In another sense, our future spouse will be our spiritual mirror. They will reflect back to us what we shine on them, and they will help us grow in the way we need to grow spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Ridding ourselves of these imperfections is one of the purposes of marriage. Fleshing out our weaknesses and destroying them as part of the Old Man is one advantage of being able to see ourselves from our spouse’s perspective.

Bootcamp is about change and hard work and creating not just a single warrior, but a fighting unit. A seal is effective on his own, but he was meant to fight as part of a team. The Body of Christ is composed of many marriages; all meant to be pointing to the ultimate marriage. Marriage in the Body of Christ isn’t a solo act because warriors fight as a team. With this outlook on things, marriage can well be considered the foundation of Christianity. 

A bold statement, but isn’t it true? 

This takes us back to why humans were created in the first place. We are here because God desires a family. We are the family of God through the promise of adoption. God desires unity through our marriages and Church family, possibly the hardest line to walk consistently. The whole Bible is a marriage manual, a marriage manual that tells us how to dwell with God and our fellow man and walk this line.

“It’s not your sword that will make you king; it’s the way that you rule your own head and heart.” - Outlander

We have to be in charge of our emotions, and we have to have the mental discipline of character. A sword is just a tool, and it’s a useless one without a well-disciplined mind to wield it. Our Bibles aren’t good luck charms. They don’t do us any good just sitting on our shelf. We could carry it around all day long with us, and it wouldn’t do us a lick of good unless we actually read it. Without the character to wield it properly, our sword, the Bible, is useless to us.

  

The connecting beam that carries the concept of marriage through the whole Bible is God’s Holy days which all point to the marriage of the Lamb and show us the picture of ultimate unity. Christ is the cornerstone, the guide of our faith and Christianity; make no mistake, but marriage is built upon that cornerstone as well, using it as the measuring rod and providing the foundation of our way of life. By building a relationship with God and learning how we are to dwell with Him, we learn how to dwell with each other and behave in our physical marriages. We learn how to open our hearts and become better prepared to be part of the bride of Christ.

This brings us back to the idea that marriage is meant to make us holy rather than happy, and if you would like to study into this topic more, I highly recommend the book “Sacred Marriage.” Our marriages preach the gospel message to the world. A strong God-centered marriage preaches this, anyways; however, they can preach other messages if they are not focused on God. It would stand to reason that as ambassadors of the kingdom, our actions would reflect on our native land. We might be the only positive contact a person ever has with a Christian. 

What is the message we are preaching? 

As the old saying goes, a good sermon is lived, not preached. A godly marriage is the work of a lifetime, and it prepares us for the kingdom. 

We are preparing for the kingdom ahead of time. Why? 

We are seeking to take on the attributes of the kingdom now in this life because, as everyone knows, we fight as we train. As we get broken down in our training day by day, we can look back and see that all the pain and hard lessons we have gone through have begun to build us into the warriors God wants us to be. 

Romans 5:3-4 NKJV And not only [that], but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 

4 and perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Tribulation builds character. Marriage brings tribulation, but it also brings happiness as well. Why would this be important for singles to understand? Why should we, as singles, get the point about the message we should be preaching in our marriages? 

The answer to this is another question, does a godly marriage begin with I do? 

Does the message we are preaching start on our wedding day? 

We fight as we train. Before BUDS comes basic training, and before marriage comes finding a spouse. How we go about locating this spouse will shape how we act in our marriages; it prepares the ground for the foundation to be laid. Marriage and pre-marriage give us valuable opportunities to prepare for becoming sons and daughters of God, opportunities that we would not get anywhere else or in any other situation. As singles, we are in marriage boot camp now. Our opportunity to build healthy habits for marriage is now. The purpose of life and marriage is to develop our character and shape it into who God wants us to be. Just like in BUDS, our marriages strip us back to our base self and not only show us who we are, but they also show us who we need to become: and then they rebuild us into that image, the image of Christ.