Marriage – and faith, and faithfulness – Sunday, November 14, 1954
We should like to speak again of faith and faithfulness. Perhaps there are no two people, however close and compatible, but who could find some occasions of misunderstanding and some causes for annoyance with one another—especially if they become careless and inconsiderate.
In marriage, many things may lead to misunderstanding—differences of personality (peculiarities, we may choose to call them if we are speaking of the attributes of others, and not of our own!), misfortunes, financial setbacks (which all tend to add to the tension), lack of consideration, lack of appreciation (or what seems to be so), and taking too much for granted, letting down, and becoming careless in conduct, and perhaps careless even in personal appearance.
And as misunderstandings are magnified, marriages miscarry in mounting numbers, with the wreckage of homes, with hurt and unhappy children, and with little gained by any of it, and with irreparable damage done. The reasons may not always be apparent, but the tragic results almost always are.
Part of the problem may be that breaking up, running away, sometimes seems to be the shortest or easiest solution. But actually, it isn’t—for without some change inside, the personalities and the problems are simply shifted to another scene, with costs compounded, with endless complications; and the principal participants as well as the innocent bystanders—children and others—are always faced with the fact that there has been a failure.
And a tradition for failure is exceedingly hazardous, in families and elsewhere also. A broken home, a broken marriage, always requires explanation. But making a marriage work well is its own glorious beginning of a tradition for success. Marriage is more than a mere social convenience, more than a legal contract. It is a sacred covenant, that cannot, with impunity, be set aside.
Happiness, sincere, mature, stable happiness, seldom if ever would seem to come easily or accidentally. One must work at it, live for it, give up something of himself and of his own selfishness, and conduct himself with courtesy, with character and consideration—with forbearance, with faith and faithfulness.
Once a marriage is made it should be made to work, with a family to rear, with children to teach, with prayerfulness, high purpose, and faithful performance.
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November 14, 1954
Broadcast Number 1,317