Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Guest (Female): Your marriage can be healed. A Hope Restored marriage intensive from Focus on the Family can transform you and your spouse's relationship in just a few days.

Guest (Male): We'll go to this thing, but this is it. If this doesn't work, we're done.

Guest (Female): What we have now is way more than we ever had before and that I ever even dreamed of in the marriage.

Guest (Male): Discover more at hoperestored.com. That's hoperestored.com.

John Fuller: Input, output, but where's there room for grace? I'm John Fuller, along with Greg and Erin Smalley, and welcome to the show. Today we're going to be talking about covenant versus contractual love, and Greg, I'd love for you to just give us a quick overview of the differences.

Greg Smalley: They're very, very different. When the Bible talks about a covenant, it's really a binding promise that's being made before God with your spouse. That's a big deal. We enter into a binding agreement, a binding promise that God then takes extremely serious, versus a contract. A contract says, "I'll stay as long as the terms are met." A covenant says, "I'm committed even when things are hard."

That's the point. That's the love that we watch in the Old Testament that God had towards His bride, the children of Israel. Think of all the rebelling, all the horrible choices that they made all the time, and He continued to say, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." His bonded love through that contract for them is exactly what He's made with us as we accept His Son, whom He sent, who died on the cross for us.

That's the spirit of when we stand up at that wedding ceremony before the Lord, before our friends and family, and before each other, like Erin and I did, like John and Dina did. That's the seriousness of what we're going into, and we're saying, "I'm with you until the end. We'll figure this out. We'll go get help when we need to, but I'm committed to you because of that promise, that covenant that I made."

John Fuller: Let's go ahead and hear from well-known speaker and writer Dr. Gary Chapman, who has written about many different things, including the Five Love Languages. He's going to talk a little bit more about these concepts of contractual versus covenantal love.

Gary Chapman: I think we have a very contract-based culture. We just learn to do that. Keep your receipts and take something back. "If you do this, then I will behave this way." We take that right into marriage, that contract orientation, rather than what God is expecting in that covenant relationship. Most of us as Christians may not even know the distinction.

I think our culture is a contract culture and there's nothing wrong with contracts. You can drive this car if you pay the monthly bill. We make them in our culture all the time. But I think when we take marriage with that attitude—and many people do—the concept is, "I'm in this for you to make me happy. You make me happy, I'm here." Many of the divorces that take place in our country are because a person gets to the point where they feel like you're not meeting my needs, you're not making me happy, or you're not loving me, then I'm out of here. It's a contract. I'm here for you to make me happy and meet my needs. If you don't meet my needs, then I'm gone.

The Bible is not a contract mentality. It is a covenant relationship. First of all, a covenant is always made for the benefit of the other person. God made a covenant with Noah to save his whole family. God made a covenant with Abraham. It's a decision we make for the benefit of the other person. I admit most people do not enter marriage when they are standing there at the altar thinking, "I'm in this thing to make you happy, meet your needs, and give myself to serve you the rest of my life." Even though we use that language, "in sickness and in health," that's the language of covenant. "As long as we both shall live," that's the language of covenant.

The covenant is made for the benefit of the other person and it's lived out. I'm in this relationship to enrich your life. Whatever I can do to help you become the person that God wants you to become, that's what I want to do. If we both have that idea of the covenant relationship, and covenants are made for a lifetime. They're not made just while things are good.

The whole framework today in American culture where many people are living together before they get married, the concept is, "I'm going to try this out." Most of them don't get married because in trying it out, they have the normal things they would have if they were married, but now they just bail out because, "I'm not going to stay here and be unhappy in this relationship." So they bail out and go from one person to another person. They're never going to find ultimate fulfillment in a marriage like we have in a marriage that has a covenant concept.

We're committed to each other. For me, Jim, this is really one thing that kept me in our marriage in those early days when we were having struggles. Karolyn and I were both Christians. we believed the scriptures. We had the concept of covenant marriage: this is forever. So we have got to find a solution to this. The solution is not one of us running off and hoping we'll find somebody else we'll be happy with forever.

The divorce rate in second marriages is higher than first marriages. Obviously, the answer is not running and finding somebody else. The answer is learning. When we have the covenant concept that we are committed to each other for better or for worse, and if it gets worse, we're going to make it better. With God's help, we're going to turn it in a positive direction. That's why reading books like this, going to marriage conferences, and getting counseling are all available to help us turn it in the right direction and live out our covenant relationship.

Erin Smalley: Undoubtedly we have people who are listening to this, understanding what Dr. Chapman is saying and thinking, "But it's not working for me because I'm not getting anything out of this relationship. I give and give and give, but I just haven't been happy for a long, long time." What do they do?

It's discouraging and often times people will walk away not giving any effort to restoring the marriage. This is assuming that there's no abuse occurring, and if there is, the main priority is safety. However, whenever a couple comes in and begins working on the marriage, it is amazing to me how things begin to shift, either individually first and foremost or relationally, or both.

We often will say start with you because you have control of you. I love when I'll be working with a couple and one will say, "I had to catch up to her or to him because she began to grow or he began to grow and I realized I was falling behind, so I needed to start growing." With two individuals who are pursuing growth and pursuing becoming more like Jesus, it's going to impact the relationship.

If you're in one of those seasons where you're stuck or you're in a dry season—Greg and I have been married for 34 years, John and Dina have been married for over 40 years—that's a lot of years of marriage and there are hard things that both couples have walked through. In those seasons, notice do we draw closer together and closer to God, or did it push us away? If you're in one of those seasons where you're feeling so disconnected or maybe there's something that's happened that's been a crisis, reach out to us for help. We have an amazing marriage intensive program called Hope Restored and you can learn all about that by either calling or we'll put a link in the show notes because there's always hope with God.

John Fuller: There is. If you're not feeling the need to get away to one of these marriage intensives, give us a call and talk to one of our counselors. That's a free phone call at 800, the letter A, and the word FAMILY. We'll call you back and figure out where you're at and how to grow and persevere.

We've got a number of terrific resources, including the book written by Dr. Gary Chapman called *A Simple Guide for a Better Marriage*. It offers quick, practical insights every couple needs to thrive. It's a great book. You can get a copy when you make a donation of any amount to Focus on the Family today. Support this show and all that we're doing to strengthen marriages, and we'll say thanks for being a part of the support team by sending a copy of that book to you.

You can begin that journey by calling that 800 number or clicking the link in the notes. Next time, Rhonda Stoppe will offer some insights about changing your perspective to have a healthier marriage. For now, on behalf of Greg and Erin Smalley and the entire team, thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast.

Guest (Male): Is your marriage struggling? Communication breaking down, trust fading, conflict that never seems to resolve? Well, there's still hope. Hope Restored marriage intensives by Focus on the Family help couples step away from daily life and focus fully on rebuilding their relationship. Right now, through the Marriage Investment Initiative, Hope Restored is investing $1,000 toward every marriage intensive. Visit hoperestored.com/marriage-investment.