Marriage between one man and one woman is a very exclusive institution. The institution only has two parties, the man and his wife. Nobody is included in this exclusive relationship apart from the couple, not even their kids.

As we always said, marriage, the one-flesh relationship, is the idea and agenda of God. Man didn’t invent marriage. God did. And God created marriage for His eternal glory and for our joy and fulfillment in this life. Marriage makes this hard life bearable, but not all marriages have this kind of effect. Some marriages are actually a source of pain, suffering, regret and guilt.

After all, generally speaking, there are only two kinds of marriages, bad marriages and good marriages. In this side of eternity, there is no perfect marriage. We are yet to see that ideal and perfect marriage. Where? In heaven! It is the marriage of Jesus Christ and the Church (Revelation 19-22). Until we witness that perfect marriage, we only have two alternatives, to live in a bad marriage or to live in a good marriage.

We can say much about why some marriages are bad but in this one post, we zoom in on one factor or reason why some marriages go from good to bad. In short, that reason is lack of communication.

Good communication is a key component of a good and healthy marriage. As they say, “Show me a good marriage and I will show a marriage bundled up with healthy communication.” That is so true.

So, our first question should be, well, what is communication?

The literal dictionary meaning of communication is, “the imparting or exchanging of information or news.”

Yes, communication is a two-way street, two parties are involved in it, the two parties play the role of a receiver as well as a sender of “information or news” alternatively. That is what we do in our everyday life, don’t we? We go to church and at the end of the service we stop and talk with our church members, catching up with our lives.

It is the same thing in marriage. The only difference is the two parties involved are always the same and they both have vested interest in each other’s life because they are married people, they are “one” as the Bible calls them (Genesis 2:24).

How a married couple speaks to each other on a daily basis can determine the health of their marriage. Communication to be healthy and nurturing to the couple, it has to have three major pillars and none of these pillars are irreplaceable and all of them are indispensable for healthy communication to flourish.

These pillars are called honesty, respect and love.

We didn’t write them in the order of their priority. Three of them are equally important. That means three of them take first place but for the sake of discussion, we address them one by one. Of course we cannot address them all in one post. So, for today, let’s see honesty.

Honesty, like the other two pillars, is the most important pillar to build a healthy communication in marriage. The literal meaning of honesty is “uprightness of character or action.” Honesty is having integrity and probity in action and word.

How can a person be honest?

Some people courageously claim that they don’t like to lie and they despise people who lie, as if lying was something that couldn’t be found in their lives. So, from the outset, let’s say this: We all lie in one way or the other. That settles it, doesn’t it? We all are guilty of lying once or countless times.

So, the right question to ask is how can I learn to be honest especially in my marriage, with my spouse?

It is not easy to be honest sometimes or most of the time. We don’t want others to know everything about us and reject us after they know about us. So, we try to paint everything “beautifully.” Where did this come from?

From the beginning!

Listen:

“So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” Genesis 3:6-8 ESV

Did you see it?

Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and they both fell from God’s glory. Then they both realized that they were not as beautiful as they used to. So, what did they do?

They sewed fig leaves to use it as a cover, or we call that cover today “clothing.” Why? So that their ugliness won’t be visible to anyone, including God.

Sin makes us all stupid and foolish! The first consequence of sin is being fooled by it. It takes away our common sense. While we are honorable human beings, sin makes us act and live like “a beast” and animals who only live according to their instincts; and guess what, we don’t even know it (Psalm 49:12, 15, 2 Peter 2:12).

How can they hide from all knowing and all seeing sovereign God!

Not only they sewed fig leaves as clothing, they also hid themselves behind the trees of the garden. Can somebody say to them, “Hello! What are you guys trying to do? Who are you hiding from? From God?” The Hebrews writer says, “no creature is hidden from his[God’s] sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” Hebrews 4:13 ESV

Yes, Adam and Eve knew God but now they have sinned against God and they lost their understanding, mind, common sense, love, joy, peace (sin did that to them, and sin does that to us too). What are they filled with? Fear! And fear became their shepherd. Fear makes us believe our feelings and emotions without any question because, remember, sin has a power to blind and deceive. Listen:

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” Hebrews 3:12-13 ESV

Wow! Sin makes us even more sinful through deceit.

Anyways, going back to our story, Adam and Eve hid themselves in everything they thought could hide them.

We all, children of Adam and Eve, come to this world wearing our “ugliness,” and the first thing we learn as children is how to cover our ugliness-referring to falling short from the glory of God as the Bible says, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23 ESV.

As far as we are concerned, we learn starting from childhood that we need to hide our “nakedness.” From whom? From God and other human beings!

Jesus said,

“For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and NAKED. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and THE SHAME OF YOUR NAKEDNESS may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”
Revelation 3:17-18 ESV (capitalization was added for the purpose of emphasis)

Hallelujah!

It is only through the blood of Jesus Christ that we can be “clothed” and free from our shame. Notice: Folks in the church of Laodicea were “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked” but they didn’t know because their knowledge had been hijacked by sin. So, Jesus is inviting them to come to Him as they were, with their true nakedness, so He can cloth them.

You know what this is called? Repentance! Coming to God as we are, ugly and naked, accepting our sinfulness, deserving to receive from God His wrath, to be thrown into hell.

But like Laodicea church folks, none of us can know our sinfulness unless God Himself “perhaps grant them[us] repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth” (2 Timothy 2:22-26; Psalm 19:12-13).

When we come to God as we are and letting His Word and Spirit show us the extent of our sinfulness, we find freedom in Christ. We know how to be naked, humbling ourselves before Him. Do you know what that is making us? Honest people before God and man!

A person who is naked before God finds it easy to be naked with his life partner, spouse, even if this “being naked” before another human is a process that can be achieved in people who always live before God in repentance, coming to God and be naked and change the course of their lives 180 degrees.

Until this spiritual phenomenon happens in a person’s life, no one can be honest with his/her spouse. And when honesty or integrity is missing in our lives, it will be hard or even impossible for us to build a healthy communication in our marriages because as we said earlier, honesty is one of the three most important pillars of a healthy communication, as respect and love.

If you are married and know that you and your spouse have a not-so-good communication, please seek counseling because dead communications produce dead marriages. Be aware! ///