intertwined building blocks of friendship and marriage.

If you couldn't tell from previous blog posts, I really like friendships. The concept to me is mind boggling and glorious and beautiful, but it's even better when it's lived out and felt, really really felt. I think part of the reason I find it so stunning is that there is no power struggle in true, authentic friendships. Both are equals, walking through life side-by-side, able to look at each other eye-to-eye because it's not about who's better or who's leader, but about how each person can better serve and love the other. I wrote in one of my previous blog posts,

"It's a beautiful parallel system that God created here - friendship isn't only about one person learning all about another. It's about two people coming to terms with their identities, together as friends, but also as individuals. We often learn the most about ourselves by learning about other people."

I see this all throughout the Bible, especially in one of my favorite passages, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, where two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help... A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Back-to-back, side-by-side, helping the other stand up when they fall down, bare their soul, and their heart still feels a little shaky.

For I've lost track of the number of times I've heard people say that true romance and true marriages are built on friendship. I've heard that if friendship isn't the rock solid foundation of romance, the relationship is pretty much doomed to fail. If the concept of mutual, life-giving friendship isn't at the center of a romantic relationship, it seems rather forced and dull. Romance has to flow naturally from a place of authentic love (1 Corinthians 13), of the desire to honor the other as above yourself (Romans 12:10) and bear their burdens alongside of them (Galatians 6:2). That's something required of us as Christians in general, not just as romantic partners.

So I get confused when I hear people bring up terms like "male headship" and "authority," "leadership" and "roles," when discussing the elements of a biblical marriage. Like when Candace Cameron Bure states, "It is very difficult to have two heads of authority… When you’re competing with two heads, that can pose a lot of problems or issues" (Bure, Huffington Post). And Bure isn't the only one who holds this opinion. I've heard similar statements from various people in my life, convinced that a solid marriage needs a leader in order to avoid power struggles and chaos.

Yet no one preaching on friendship would ever claim that one friend has to be the servant leader, and the other has to submit. No one would claim that friendships digress into nothing more than chaotic power struggles if one person isn't put in charge. I'm guessing authors such as Candace Cameron Bure wouldn't post interviews on why she submits to her best friend.

Why? Because friendships aren't contractual. Christ-like friendships are about doing life together. They're about side-by-side community, about friends leading in their strengths and submitting out of love, not because the submission is demanded or forced upon them by Scripture, but because it is a natural outpouring of loving someone as you love yourself. That kind of love isn't just used to describe marriages - it's the same kind of love used to paint the picture of David and Jonathan's covenantal friendship, where Jonathan had David reaffirm his oath out of love for him, because he loved him as he loved himself (1 Samuel 20:17).

Here's what I'm saying: I don't think there's one right way to DO marriage. Something as holy and mysterious as the marital covenant can't be reduced to a set of rules or roles or several bible verses taken out of context. Just as I have seen many glorious marriages based on mutual submission, so have I seen marriages with the man as the head that are still radiantly beautiful.

At the same time, I think the 'headship' and the 'leadership' language starts to sound more and more like an employer-employee relationship, a business leader and an administrative assistant, rather than a husband and wife one-flesh bond of love and unity. Since when did Christ become not enough as the head of a relationship?

Authentic friendships don't leave room for hierarchies, for static leaders and helpers, for legalistic rankings of authority. And from what I've come to learn so far, neither do marriages. With Christ as the head, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, become one in Him, taking turns leading and helping, showing weakness and showing strength, because in Christ there is no fear. There is no shame. One is not pigeon-holed into a specific role, but allowed the space and fluidity to grow into who he or she is in Christ. 

God is constantly creating us into beautiful things; beautiful things that are organic, not forced or hurried, beaten down with never enoughs and just not theres.

And for most of my life, I've heard sermons preached on marriage that only left me feeling restricted, like it was nothing more than a cardboard check list of dos and don'ts, impossible standards with no room to be afraid and vulnerable and simply HUMAN. But I've also heard those same pastors talk about friendship, about David and Jonathan and Ruth and Naomi, about carrying each other's burdens, and it was like breathing in fresh air that felt FREE.

Now before you go off saying I'm scared of commitment, let me tell you that I only felt this way because I continued to box off marriage and friendship as two completely different concepts. Because that's how they're often talked about, right?

"Oh, they're just friends."

I still catch myself saying this now. Just friends, like the friendship is either ten times less than a romantic relationship, or a simple stepping stone leading to eventual marriage.* It's easy to paint marriage as the mountain top experience of all relationships, often times diminishing friendship in the process.

But that's the thing - marriage and friendship aren't in competition. They aren't two separate concepts on opposite sides of space, racing against each other to cross the finish line.

They're often interconnected and intertwined, constantly intersecting to reveal a breathtaking paradigm of mutuality. It's a paradigm where both are equal and Christ is the head - one that most are quick to allow into friendships.

And if friendship makes up the building blocks of healthy romantic relationships, wouldn't that same paradigm carry over into marriage?

*For more of my thoughts on platonic, male-female friendships, read my post here.