FEATURED GUEST: Mark Driscoll
As a married person, have you ever asked,
How come we’re not close? How come the marriage isn’t working? Where’s the joy? What happened to the friendship?”
Over many years of pastoral ministry, I’ve found that oftentimes the troubles in a marriage come from a secret that has not been shared.
Many spouses have a secret. Something they haven’t told their spouse. It may be sin that you’ve committed or sin that’s been committed against you. For many marriages, it’s this secret that defines the relationship.
In order for our marriages to be healthy, there must not be any secrets between a husband and a wife. As John writes,
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:5–7).
Just as our deepest secrets, if they are kept in the dark, harm our relationship with God, they also harm our relationship with our spouses. Until we are able to be truly honest with our God, ourselves, and our spouses, we cannot enjoy true fellowship—close, intimate friendship—with them.
What secret do you have? If you have a secret, you need to share it with your spouse in a humble and repentant way.
In our book, Real Marriage: The Truth About Sex, Friendship, & Life Together, Grace and I share some honest examples from our own marriage about the trouble secrets caused and difference it made to deal with them.
While it’s important for there to be no secrets in a marriage, it’s equally important that the person hearing the secret respond in grace and love for their spouse.
As Proverbs 18:21 states,
Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
The way in which we respond to our spouse’s secrets and sins will either bring life or bring death. We can respond bitterly and angrily, or we can respond as Jesus does to our sins, with humble and sacrificial love, “which covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). However, this does not mean it should not be hard to hear your spouse’s secret and that we cannot grieve when we hear it.
Today, I want to encourage you to come into the light with your spouse. Whatever your secret is, whether adultery, bitterness, an emotional affair, pornography, or something else, the first step is to come out of the darkness and walk in the light.
I can’t promise it will be easy—it probably won’t. But it is necessary.
And when you do share your secret, I want you both to remember that you both have an opportunity to either respond in sin and bring death to your relationship or to respond like Jesus and bring life into the relationship. My hope and prayer is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will choose life and begin building a strong future together as husband and wife—and as best friends.
The truth is we often don’t really know who we married until we’ve been married for a number of years. Sadly, the season of dating is often more like an actor and an actress each playing a role rather than two sinners coming clean early rather than getting caught later.
To help you start this process, here are a few questions to prayerfully and carefully consider:
What is your secret?
- How much anxiety does your secret cause you as you live in dreaded fear of getting caught?
- How is your secret causing distance between you and God? Between you and your spouse?
- How have you tried to assuage your conscience by partially confessing your secret in such a way that your spouse really does not know the full depth of the secret?
- For those who are single, what can you do to deal with your secret before you get into a committed relationship approaching marriage?
- For those who are single but in a serious relationship, when and how do you intend to be honest before you are married?
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FEATURED GUEST: Mark Driscoll
Pastor Mark Driscoll is the founding pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington and is one of the world’s most-downloaded and quoted pastors. His audience—fans and critics alike—spans the theological and cultural left and right. He was also named one of the “25 Most Influential Pastors of the Past 25 Years” by Preaching magazine, and his sermons are consistently #1 on iTunes each week for Religion & Spirituality with over 10 million of downloads each year.
