Making Marriage “Right”

What’s wrong with marriage? Clearly there must be SOMETHING wrong with it. All we hear on the radio or see on TV are negative images and portrayals of marriage. Referring to a recent interview where Oprah Winfrey said that she’s “not the marrying kind,” the Tom Joyner Morning Show crew went on a long diatribe about how marriage just does not work. Nevermind the fact that marriage has been around for as long as, well as long as humans have been around. Apparently, it’s working for some people. I guess the more appropriate question would be, “What’s RIGHT about marriage?”

In my humble opinion, there are at least three things that help make a marriage “right.”

1. The RIGHT person

Many marriages fail because many people fail to marry the right person. Far too often we are attracted to a person’s SUPERFICIAL qualities instead of their SACRIFICIAL qualities. When someone is superficial, they’re main priority is themselves. When someone is sacrificial, they put others ahead of themselves. It is extremely difficult – almost impossible – to make a marriage right when the person is wrong.

Even worse than marrying the wrong person is BEING the wrong person. You can’t expect your marriage to be right if you’re not. In fact, I’ve discovered that the easiest way to improve a marriage is to improve yourself. You can’t change your mate, but you can change yourself. The right marriage starts with the right person, and that person is you!

2. The RIGHT time

Finding the right person cannot compensate for marrying at the right time. Many marriages don’t survive because the couple married “out of season.” There is a time and place for everything. We must make sure the time is right…or things will go all wrong. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. When you find the right person (and have become the right person) make sure that it’s the right time. Timing is everything!

3. The RIGHT reasons

Marriage is wrong when it happens for the wrong reasons. And we must recognize that the wrong reasons often seem right at first glance. It may seem right to get married so you can have “legal” sex, but sex is not a right reason to get married. Sex was made for marriage, but marriage was not made for sex. If you only marry someone because he or she is SEX-Y, when the sex is gone all you’re left with is Y?

Marriage is right, but it has to be with the right person, at the right time, and for the right reasons. Many people jumped into a marriage that wasn’t RIGHT…that’s why they LEFT! Even if your marriage started off wrong, you have the power to make it right. You are the right person, now is the right time, and your happiness is the right reason for you to make your marriage right.