I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with a suitable topic for Marriage Monday all weekend. My thoughts are continuously being hijacked by our racial unrest and George Floyd’s murder. It makes my heart ache, and makes my husband’s heart ache and so this is about marriage. Black Lives Matter for your marriage.
Why Black Lives Matter
Black lives matter because God loves all people, no matter what their color, creed, or nationality. When we treat any of His people badly, His heart aches. Period.
There are six evils God truly hates and a seventh that is an abomination to him: Putting others down while considering yourself superior, spreading lies and rumors, spilling the blood of the innocent, plotting evil in your heart toward another, gloating over doing what’s plainly wrong, spouting lies in false testimony, and stirring up strife between friends. These are entirely despicable to God!”
Proverbs 6:16-19 TPT
I’ve seen lots of people posting “all lives matter.” Of course they do, but right now, in this time and place, saying all lives matter is an insult to the atrocities and the black people who suffer them.
This is how I understand the difference between black lives matter and all lives matter. If I’m on the beach with my 4 kids and one goes into the water and starts drowning, I’m going to leave the 3 and go save the one. I’m not saying that those 3 don’t matter, but if one of my kids can’t breath, that’s the one I’m going to attend to. At that time and place, the child who can’t breath matters.
Here are more Scriptures that illustrate God’s heart. Surely He weeps at racial injustice today just as He did thousands of years ago.
This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.
Jeremiah 22:3
The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
Psalm 9:9
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.
Isaiah 10:1-2
Why Black Lives Matter in your Marriage
We are Christian marriage mentors, and we are on mission to serve God and grow to be one in our marriage. The issues we stand for really matter for those of us who represent the King of Kings.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
Ephesians 5: 31-32
The incredible picture we are ordained to present to the world is the relationship of Christ and the Church (meaning all those who follow Christ, not any particular denomination). God is so brave, to give such an awesome responsibility to us ordinary people. But He provides us with His Spirit to guide and correct and encourage us.
Still, I think He’s really brave to risk His reputation on us!
So if black lives matter to God, then black lives should matter to a Christian marriage. How we react to the racial injustice as a Christian marriage will reflect God’s heart to those who are watching.
So What can we Do to Reflect Black Lives Matter?
There are lots of articles about what we can do as white people. One suggestion I have is to turn your strangerhood into your neighborhood.
Like most middle class white kids, we were raised in insulated small-mindedness by well-meaning but equally clueless parents. The only way for us to grow out of our childhood is opening the front door, walking down our street, and stopping to listen and learn what’s on the hearts of the people next door. Especially people who are different from us.
Turn your strangerhood into your neighborhood. If you already know the neighbors who look like you, go make friends with the neighbors who don’t look like you. If everyone in your neighborhood looks like you, go to another neighborhood.
God’s second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Turn the stranger into your neighbor; see them, hear them, feel them. Your neighbor could be in the next house or the next county.
“[God’s] wisdom…will whisper to you at every sunrise and direct you through a brand-new day. For truth is a bright beam of light shining into every area of your life, instructing and correcting you to discover the ways to godly living.”
Proverbs 6:22-23 TPT