I Hold You Responsible

Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. . . . When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”

John 21:20–23

ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS IS A MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPIST. ONE SUMMER our families took a vacation together. When you do that, you see the good and the bad.

On one occasion, he saw the bad. He and I had been talking about a situation in my marriage in which I was struggling with an appropriate response. My friend knew this issue had been simmering in my relationship with Lisa for some time, but now he saw it firsthand.

“So you see what I’m trying to deal with?” I asked him.

“I do. But, buddy, I hold you responsible.”

My friend then helped me see how a weakness of my own had exacerbated the situation. In fact, I think that’s why this issue bugged me so much—it regularly pointed out to me where I was falling short, and I resented that.

We can’t control how our spouses react, but we always remain responsible for how we react. One person’s sin never excuses our own. In my case, I realized I was acting like a wimp. There’s no more noble way to put it! I was so consumed with being a “nice” husband that I had become less than a good husband.

The next day I went on a long run, which is how I like to process things. I remember praying, “Okay, God, we’ve established that I’m a wimp—but I don’t know how to change. I’ve been like this my entire life. What should I do?”

Looking back, I’m amazed at how, just a day or two earlier, I had focused completely on what I thought Lisa was doing wrong and how Lisa needed to change. I felt sorry for myself and was more than a little frustrated. But my friend helped me see I could better spend my energies addressing the weakness that this situation was revealing in me.

Like Peter, I had insisted on saying, “Lord, what about her?” But just as Jesus challenged Peter, so he challenged me: “What is that to you? You must follow me.” It was as if God was saying, “I’ll deal with Lisa; right now, concern yourself with what you need to change.”

I honestly believe just about every case of marital strife has this dynamic at work. God allows us to come together as two sinners, knowing we will be sinned against. Marriage is about learning how to respond to a sinful human being in a holy way. It’s also about letting someone else’s sin reveal our own.

Marriage is about learning how to respond to a sinful human being in a holy way.

Because we all marry sinners, I can’t see any other way to look at it. None of us are married to perfect human beings. (The one perfect human—Jesus Christ—never married.) The reality of coping with someone else’s sin never excuses us from fulfilling God’s high call to keep on loving.

That’s why Lisa and I have chosen to remain relatively transparent even to outsiders. I can’t count the times someone has come up to us and said, “I just can’t believe how transparent and vulnerable you and Lisa are in Sacred Marriage!” After hearing this a dozen or more times, Lisa and I went back and read through what I had written, worried that maybe we had been too vulnerable!

But after doing that, we still regretted nothing we had said. We both acknowledge that we deal with sin every day because we know that every couple deals with sin every day. It’s time for all of us to acknowledge the reality of sin and then to learn how to deal with it, rather than to pretend that some ugly realities don’t exist or that they can be solved in ten easy steps.

You may feel frustrated by an issue in your own marriage, and legitimately so. I know you’re being sinned against, because I know you married a sinner. You’re not the first in this situation, and you certainly won’t be the last. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t change anything. Changing spouses won’t stop you from being sinned against either—all it will do is change the way you’re sinned against!

One productive thing you can do is to take an honest look at how a character flaw of your own is contributing (notice I didn’t say “causing,” which is too strong) to the situation, and ask God to help you overcome it. Seek godly counsel, listen to God in prayer, study what the Bible says about it. Use marital strife as a “mirror moment” that points out an area where God wants to change you.