The following are a collection of quotes from the first marriage seminar that our Summit counselor, Brad Hambrick, led. You can find full videos here.
“Character is a better predictor of marital satisfaction than compatibility.”
“You will be married to at least a dozen people over the course of one marriage.”
“Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become ‘whole’ and happy. The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that it we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect of marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we will always marry the wrong person.” ~Stanley Hauerwas, “Sex and Politics,”Christian Century.
“We don’t need higher or lower expectations; we need healthy and articulated expectations.”
“The best spouse is the best learner, so we will never ‘arrive’ as a spouse.”
“Your identity as someone’s spouse is secondary to your identity as a servant of God.” ~Winston Smith, Marriage Matters
“We will have to take the risk of being known before we experience the joy of being loved.”
“A thriving marriage is lived in a story larger than either spouse, or even both spouses combined.”
“The example the husband sets has eternal consequences. This means headship is more about controlling one’s character than controlling one’s wife. The man who is more concerned with how his wife should obey him than with how he should obey God fails the kindergarten of biblical headship (p. 78).” ~Bryan Chappell in Each for the Other
“Only having the gospel at the center of your life can prevent marital burnout.”
“We simply can’t have our cake and eat it, too. We can’t insist on running the show and then expect men to be proactive, take initiative, and be ‘spiritual leaders’… You must be willing to let him fail—believing that ultimately, your security is not in your husband but in a sovereign God who is not going to fail you.” ~Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Lies Women Believe
“Your marital mission is to make it as easy as possible for your spouse to look like, live for, and show others Jesus.”
“Family leadership is not a personality trait or skill you’re born with. It is a responsibility given by God.”
“Our personal dreams for marriage seem so beautiful and convincing that we don’t stop to consider that God’s dreams for us may be different.” ~Winston Smith, Marriage Matters
“Both the husband (head) and wife (submitting) are playing ‘the Jesus role’ in their marriage.”
“The home a wife manages impacts more generations than anything a husband manages outside the home.”
“Plenty of people have marital problems because they haven’t ‘left’ to cleave to their spouse. You have failed to leave your parents if you are more driven by their wishes and expectations than by your spouse’s. But you can also fail to leave your parents if you resent or hate them too much. . . . If you rigidly impose the patterns that you saw in your own family rather than working together with your spouse to create new ones that fit both of you, you haven’t ‘left home’ yet.” ~Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage
“Falling in love is easier than knowing what to do once you’re there.”
“Our marriage is not damaged by cries of weakness but by pronouncements of strength.” ~Paul Tripp
“Marriage cannot be a ‘side project’ that we ‘come home to’ after we finish the ‘important stuff’ of life.”
