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To order Pastor Ken Ortize's DVD, "Marriage the Way it's Made to be", call Calvary Spokane at (800) 288-2860 or e-mail us at "Matters of the Heart" Radio ministry with your order. Cost is $13.00 (+ $1.50) shipping.

To order Pastor Ken Ortize's book, "Marriage the Way it's Made to be", call Calvary Spokane at (800) 288-2860 or e-mail us at "Matters of the Heart" Radio ministry with your order. Cost is $10.00.

Chapter 1

Someone once observed that what motivates most students to study psychology is a desire for free therapy. I'm not sure that is always the case, but I know that's what motivated me to begin studying about marriage-my marriage was a mess.

My wife and I certainly never intended it to be that way. I doubt that anyone does. We were so self-assured, so confident, in the beginning. And why not? We felt we knew enough about being happily married to be successful. We had seen the latest release of "Romeo and Juliet," and our feelings seemed to mirror those of the lovers on the big screen. We were in love. And most importantly, we were both Christians. This proved to be our biggest misconception of all.

I remember my wife recounting to me a conversation she and her father almost had the night before our wedding. He sat her down and began to talk to her about some of the challenges she might encounter as a wife. Before he could even get into his comments, she quickly cut him off: "Don't worry Dad. We're Christians. We won't have those kinds of problems."

This proved to be a critical miscalculation. Being Christians did not even begin to address the lack of understanding we had of what it takes to make a marriage work. We barely knew what the Bible had to say about marriage, and what little we did know was not balanced by wisdom or experience. We were basically clueless about what marriage was all about.

Not surprisingly, our marriage soon became miserable for both of us, and for good reason. The adoring woman I had married had suddenly become a moody, critical and depressed nag. The strong and sensitive man my wife had married was now a self-centered, inconsiderate juvenile. We both felt tricked, deceived, defrauded and depressed. What were we going to do? To whom could we turn?

Like most other young couples, our thoughts eventually drifted toward divorce. We knew enough about the Bible to know that wasn't what God wanted. Neither of us had been unfaithful, yet. How would we explain divorce to our friends and families, many with whom we had been sharing our faith and were not yet Christians?

We slowly resigned ourselves to our fate. We concluded that our marriage was a terrible mistake, but for God's sake we would stick it out, "UNTIL DEATH DO US PART!" It seemed the only escape from this unhappy marriage was either death or the rapture. Neither of us wanted to do heavy prison time, so we began to pray, "Come quickly, Lord Jesus!"

As pathetic as this may sound, this was a vitally important step in the right direction. It gave our marriage the time it needed to begin the process of healing and rebuilding.

Now, almost 25 years and four children later, we laugh a lot more about it. Stories from our past have proven useful in helping others to identify problem spots in their own marriages. But, like an old wound, long healed, the scars of those days still remain-a constant reminder of the pain that once ruled our lives.

What follows in this book are insights which we have gleaned through the years by the help of the Holy Spirit, ministering through God's wondrous Word, through His people, and through one another. Every error and failing I touch on in this book is personally well known to us. What I share are our failures, our weaknesses and our sins.

Good Decisions

Once a fledgling young executive asked the aged and experienced president of a highly successful business what the "key" was to his success. The older man responded, "Good decisions." Not being completely satisfied, the younger man countered, "But how do you make good decisions?" Without hesitation the older man shot back, "By making bad decisions."

If you gain any insights from this book, know that they have come through numerous mistakes, errors and bad decisions on our part. Over time, they have become insights-not insights which we discovered; rather they were revealed to us by a merciful God who answered us in our hours of pain and despair as we desperately sought for answers through His Word and prayer.

For the most part, we found the answers, not in the multitude of books on marriage (I have read too many) but in the Book of Books-the Bible. There are no quick fixes, simple steps, or clever formulas. I am convinced that making a marriage work is a life-long process, engaged in by two very sinful human beings. In the end, if it succeeds at all, it will be because the two aforementioned sinners surrendered their wills and pleasure to the Almighty God of the Bible, submitting to the life-long process of redemption, in particular the redemption of their marriage-a marriage created after the purpose of His will and for His good pleasure.

Happy or Holy?

A few years ago, one of my lay leaders approached me with a question. He and his wife were in the process of forming an adult Sunday School class for married couples. They had spent months studying, researching and preparing for this class. On this particular day, he had come into my office with a brochure advertising a training seminar for lay-persons involved in counseling married couples. The seminar was being taught by a well known Christian marriage counselor. The question my friend asked was simple and straightforward: "Do you think it would be a worthwhile investment for us to attend this seminar?"

As I reflected upon this question for a few moments, I quickly saw a critical point of distinction between what this seminar was seeking to accomplish and what we were pursuing in our church. I explained it to him this way: "I am sure this seminar is excellent. I am very familiar with the gentleman who is leading it, and I have read many of his books and benefited from them. But his objective is not the same as ours. He desires to help people build happy marriages. We desire to build holy marriages through holy lives."

The seminar was full of communication techniques and counseling models, all designed to help a married couple understand one another and get along more amicably. But it lacked a vital ingredient: the Word of God.

The Bible is not against communication. Rather, it approaches the issue from a different perspective. According to the Bible, the reason we have so much difficulty communicating with one another is because we have never learned to "speak the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). Instead we speak from "the abundance of our hearts" (Matthew 12:34), which is usually sinful and selfish.

When I think about communication techniques, I am reminded of a quip I once heard. It goes like this: "Sincerity is the principle thing. Once you learn to fake that, you've got it made."

I am not suggesting that we all are consciously deceptive or manipulative. Rather, it is something we do subconsciously. It happens naturally, inherently, out of a sinful, selfish human nature. It comes from a tendency to view our beloved as an object through which our needs and desires can be gratified. With such a perspective of the other, we easily see communication techniques and skills as a means of enhancing our own happiness, not meeting the needs of others.

What we need is not a new skill or technique but a new heart. That requires getting past our fear of true godliness as revealed in the way Jesus dealt with others. We must stop fearing to allow God to delve deeply into our hearts and change us from within. It means learning to pray like the Psalmist when he cried out in his desperation, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23,24). Essentially, it means desiring to be "holy" more than being "happy."

I Have a Right to Be Happy, Don't I?

Some of you may be having difficulty understanding or appreciating the distinction I have just made between holiness and happiness. I assume this because almost every married couple I have ever counseled has told me that their goal in counseling was to be "happily married." I have had many individuals in a moment of frustration declare, "I have a right to be happy, don't I?" They have always been surprised when I have very firmly and directly responded, "No."

You can study the Bible from cover to cover and you will not find a single passage that tells us that we have a right to be happy. Instead, you will find that the purpose of our very existence upon this earth is to glorify God, and often that is accomplished through times of pain, suffering and unhappiness. In fact, Peter cautions us not to view hardship as something strange or unusual: "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Peter 4:12). And Paul correctly points out that married people will have "troubles" "But those who marry will face many troubles in this life" (1 Corinthians 7:28).

I am convinced that marriage is one of the tools God uses to purify His saints. Purification takes place through the fires of tribulation. Peter describes the purification process as follows:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:6,7).

Even today, when metal smiths seek to purify ore, they heat it in a cauldron until the impurities rise to the surface. Only then can the impurities be separated from the molten metal and scraped away. Likewise, sufferings and hardships are God's way of bringing the "hidden things of darkness" (1 Corinthians 4:5) to the surface, that they might be recognized, repented of, forgiven, and by His grace, removed from our lives.

It has been my personal experience that marriage has been the most effective means in my life to reveal what a sinner I am and how gracious God is. It is marriage that has taught me the most about what it means to love unconditionally, faithfully and consistently.

Blessings Are Preferable to Happiness

The Bible does not pave the way to mere personal happiness, rather it teaches how to be blessed. You may be wondering, "What is the difference between being blessed and being happy?"

Unfortunately, some Bible translations have not treated these two words with careful distinction. This has led us to believe that they are synonymous. Even in English they are not. For example, in my Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary, it defines "happy" as "favored by fortune; fortunate, lucky." In contrast "blessed" is explained as "divinely or supremely favored" which brings with it inner peace, contentment and feelings of happiness.

If you look carefully, the difference is the source from which feelings of peace, contentment and pleasure are derived. "Happiness" depends upon outward circumstances, which makes it extremely fickle and difficult to maintain. "Blessedness" draws its happiness from God, despite outward circumstances. It is what produces the inner peace of which Paul spoke to Christians at Philippi when he wrote: "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:7).

Actually, the equivalent Greek word for "happy" (euteches) never occurs in the New Testament. Whenever we find the word "happy" in the New Testament, it is the translation of markarios. Greek scholar Spiros Zodhiates helps us understanding the distinction in terms this way:

To be happy is to be favored by circumstances. A Christian and a non Christian may be happy, but only the born-again Christian may be blessed [markarios].

The Lord Jesus never promised happiness based upon circumstances, but He did promise blessedness [markariotes].

The word markarios also means "to be fully satisfied." When Jesus Christ saves us, God's nature indwells us (2 Peter 1:4) and because of that we are inherently satisfied no matter what the external conditions of life are.

To be happy is to have favorable circumstances, but to be blessed is to find full satisfaction in the indwelling Christ, and one is unaffected by the outward circumstances. It is to have the peace of God within in spite of possible affliction from without. The blessed person is one who is made satisfied because of God's presence within him no matter how much health or prosperity he or she possesses.

A happy person is one who experiences good luck. The word "happiness" comes from hap: chance; luck; lot-an occurrence or happening-even as the Greek word euteches which does not occur in the New Testament.

When we apply this information to our marriages, we can begin to see how our own short-term desires have contributed to much of the unhappiness we experience in life in general, and in our marriages in particular. If our peace, joy, contentment, etc., is dependent solely upon outward circumstances unfolding the way we think they must, we will be frequently, if not constantly, unhappy. Life is too fickle and unpredictable for it to be otherwise, and marriage is a part of life, subject to the same influences.

Through the years, we all change, sometimes "for better," and sometimes "for worse." There is "sickness and health," "prosperity and adversity." Over time, we discover things about one another and ourselves that disappoint. Even the coming of children into our lives has a dramatic effect upon how we "feel" about our marriages.

Seasons of a Marriage

Few unmarried or newlywed couples realize that the way they feel about one another prior to marriage bears no resemblance to how they will feel twenty years from now. They assume that the rather intangible emotions we call "love" will sustain them through all of the varying seasons of marriage.

Jane Aldous, in her book Family Careers-Developmental Changes in Families, has identified seven stages that predictably occur over the lifetime of a marriage. Each stage alters the level of satisfaction we feel in our marriages. She explains:

The emotional euphoria with which most marriages start is eroded over time by establishing daily routines, by growing irritations from constant association, by competing attractions of jobs and children, and by coping with the multitudinous problems, both large and small, that family life in an industrialized society entails. Fortunate couples develop an intimate understanding unique to the relationship that replaces the raptures of the first period of the marital career.

Today there are many competing ideas on what leads to a fulfilled marital relationship. Most of these stand in contradiction to the Bible; many are called biblical, but they are not. They may be sprinkled with Bible passages, but their foundation is modern, contemporary and secular.

What I have set out to do in this book is to present a true biblical basis upon which marriage can be built, as originally intended by God. I have used all the major passages of the Bible dealing with marriage as the framework around which this book is built.

I believe this is critical. We must become people who derive our understanding of all of life from the Bible, as God's holy, inerrant, inspired Word-the ultimate goal being that our marriages would do far more than provide personal happiness, that they would most importantly bring glory to God. It is in the pursuit of God's glory that our own is found (John 12:32; Romans 8:17). When pleasing Him is our desire, then we will know the pure pleasure of His will.

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being (Revelation 4:11).