Divine Detachment

For without [God], who can . . . find enjoyment?

Ecclesiastes 2:25

I’M CONVINCED ONE OF GOD’S PURPOSES FOR MARRIAGE IS TO CREATE A DIVINE disillusionment. He needs to bring us to the end of our belief that anyone other than God can ever fully satisfy us. I’ve talked to countless couples whose problems remain throughout the years—often discussed, yet never resolved. In such cases, a sense of betrayal almost always comes to the surface: “He won’t do what I need him to do,” or, “She just won’t do what I want her to do.”

When the desires are legitimate (better communication, more support, more sexual availability), the pain of denial is keenly felt; but demands—even legitimate ones—still represent the Achilles’ heel of every person’s contentment. Spiritually, demands place us at the mercy of sinful persons who are limited in their ability to love. If we look to anyone other than God to meet our deepest needs, we are guaranteeing frustration.

If we look to anyone other than God to meet our deepest needs, we are guaranteeing frustration.

You might feel frustrated because of far too little action in the bedroom—but what will you say to the couple who wrote to me after the husband had an industrial accident, a pair now facing a future without ever experiencing sexual intercourse again? Should the wife be free to pursue someone else sexually?

Of course not.

She has a legitimate desire for sexual intercourse—but it must remain unfulfilled.

You may well feel frustrated that your husband doesn’t support you emotionally the way you’d like him to—but what about the wife whose husband gets kidnapped on the mission field and who doesn’t even hear from him for two full years?

She has a legitimate desire for support, a listening ear, an aptly spoken word—but it can’t come from her husband.

Any desire can be obstructed and thereby bring frustration. We do not have an absolute right to anything. Rather, we have an obligation to trust that God, in his providence, will ultimately provide what we need—or will give us strength to do without.

I can already hear many of you arguing the point. The Christian virtue of detachment—which means we stop finding our meaning and security in people, things, position, money, and power and instead focus our needs on God—scores little popularity in today’s culture, but it remains as true today as when the ancients touted it and Jesus taught it.^a

In fact, I’ll go out on a limb and claim it’s somewhat healthy to feel a little disillusioned in your marriage because it’s at that point you’ll realize you need to look to God for your highest joy. You may feel tempted to respond to disillusionment by searching for another spouse who promises to “fulfill” you more, but eventually you would find that, while that person had strengths your spouse lacked, he or she was missing some of your spouse’s better qualities. Life with that new person would inevitably bring its own disillusionment, until one day you’d wake up to the fact that your soul’s happiness really does depend on a holy, perfect God—not a sinful human being.

John 15:13 says that Jesus, on the cross, demonstrated the greatest love ever known—laying down his life for his friends—but for every movie made about that kind of sacrificial act of love, thousands more extol romantic love. The fact is, our culture idolizes romantic love and looks teary-eyed at the meeting of “soul mates,” and it yawns at Christ’s work on the cross. May God save us from this idolatry! As wonderful as romantic love may be, it should never compete in my heart with Jesus’ work of redemption where my deepest needs were fully met. Any other love—including every kind ever portrayed by Tom Cruise or Julia Roberts—is a far lesser love; it’s an inferior love, the value of which assumes meaning only because of Jesus’ preeminent love.

So your spouse has disappointed and continues to disappoint you? Thank God. You’re in a great place. You’re in the doorway of detachment, where you can learn to let go of the expectations of the created and fall into the arms of the Creator. Our Lord took the same journey. Jesus “detached” himself from heaven to come to earth. He left his earthly parents to assume his ministry as the Messiah. He died to currying favor with the crowds so that he could become the crowd’s Savior. He even detached himself from spiritually experiencing his Father’s presence so that he could bear our sin. And then he willingly detached himself from life on earth so that he could die for our sins.

Would you be like this Savior? Then die to your demands.