While my young adult kids were here over the Christmas holiday, they binge watched a BBC show called, The Great British Bake-Off.  You’ve probably seen it.

Having a sweet tooth the size of a baked Alaska, I nearly can’t be in the same room when it’s on.  It takes extreme amounts of self-control to watch someone create a beautiful treat and not go to the pantry and dig out my super-secret stash of sweets.

If you have never seen The Great British Bake-Off, the premise of the show involves contestants who are wanna-be pastry chefs.  Each episode involves two or three baking challenges that are judged by a panel.

One assignment, called the technical challenge, always astounds me.  The contestants are given ingredients and a category, but no real recipe.  For example, they are given flour, sugar, cream, eggs, butter, and vanilla and asked to bake a caramelized tower of cream puffs that not only tastes divine, but looks like a Davinci, with only rudimentary instructions.

The winner of this challenge, typically, has past experience making the item.  They know the recipe because, previously, they have made it or witnessed someone make it.

What if they previously used or witnessed a faulty recipe?  They thought they were doing the right thing and it was actually wrong?  A faulty recipe would mean a failed technical challenge.  Their creation would not be exactly what the judges desired.

In taking this thought a little further, what if it’s not just a faulty recipe, but a faulty way of thinking, specifically, about marriage?  We came to this faulty way of thinking because it was what we saw.

Many of us come into marriage having only seen our parents’ way of handling marriage.  Oftentimes, we’ve been mentored with a faulty recipe.  Therefore, our marriage relationship does not look exactly like what God desires.

It is nearly impossible to create a perfect baked good if you’ve never seen it or practiced making it.  Similarly, how can you create a healthy marriage if you’ve never seen one (or maybe you’ve seen parts of one, but other parts were very broken)?

Define healthy

From a Christian perspective, the healthiest person that ever lived was the godliest person, Christ.  Therefore, a mentally and behaviorally healthy person, to the best of his or her ability, strives to mirror the characteristics Christ possessed.  Exhibiting these characteristics pleases God and generally brings more personal contentment and overflows into deep inner joy, leading to less strife in life and marriage.

Ultimately, why should we walk in the way of Christ?  It is in response to the great and wonderful gift we have been given, “…he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” Colossians 1:13-14 (NIV).

The Ingredients for a Healthy Marriage

You’ll probably agree with me that biblical wisdom is the best.  Some of the most practical relationship guidelines are in the Bible, especially the one another passages that I mentioned in my previous post, Team Work Makes the Dream Work.  That’s why on Sundays throughout 2020, I’m going to explore different marriage application concepts as they relate to the one-another passages.  I want to help you find the flawless recipe for a healthy marriage using the Bible as our mentor.

Why?

In part because, healthy marriages, typically, have the healthiest sexual intimacy.  Sometimes, a wife’s desire to be sexual with her husband is low because there are issues in other areas of the marriage.

But mostly because healthy marriages are the best mission team for being the hands and feet of Christ.  Less strife at home means that you practice what you preach and are able to help others find Jesus, too.

Final Thoughts

Sticking with the theme of baked goods, here is one from the back of the file drawer.

The Coconut Cake of Marriage and Sex