There are variations to this myth.
One is that whether you marry a
Christian or not doesn't really make any difference. It will all work out OK. How many young persons get burned in the process
of buying into this myth!
We preachers hesitate to speak
on this because we don't want to be judgmental. We know what the Bible teaches, that we are not to be "unequally yoked together
with unbelievers." It seems, though, to be such a hard teaching. Does it mean that one should never date a nonbeliever? So,
we back off at that point, forgetting that seldom does a person marry a person that they have not dated. We then try to give
the warning to the two who are in love. But then it is too late.
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The Christian partner kids oneself
into thinking that it really doesn't make any difference: "I'll lead my partner to faith in Jesus Christ after we get married."
Sometimes that does happen. Those of us who are parents of children who make such a decision dare not be, by our judgmentalism
and insensitivity, obstacles to this happening. But often it doesn't. I could give you case history after case history of
Christians married to nonbelievers, some wonderful and some not so wonderful, who yearn for that oneness that could have been
theirs in a truly Christian marriage.
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Another variation on this religious
myth is that all you need to do is to ask Jesus and your problems will disappear. How much blame Jesus has received from people
who somehow think that He runs around with a magic wand, instantly healing everything He touches, without us respecting certain
emotional, spiritual and physical laws that have direct consequences attached to our breaking of them. Granted, Jesus does,
in supernatural ways, on occasion intervene, bringing miraculous healings to bodies, emotions and relationships. However,
I have discovered in the majority of situations, He works in quiet, gentle, gracious ways, according to the teachings of His
Word, making available to us the resources of His power through that sanctifying process of gradual growth towards wholeness
in Christ.
The truth is that coming to Jesus
isn't going to automatically solve your marital problems. Don't blame Him for them. Don't blame Him for not taking them away.
The truth is that you and I are privileged to appropriate His power to solve those problems over which we have control and
to live with those over which we have no control.
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