I know this is supposed to be a book about marriage, but forget about people for a moment. Let’s focus on something bigger: God. Focus on something more important: your relationship with God. This relationship is far more critical than your marriage, and it’s everlasting.

If I believe the primary purpose of marriage is to model God’s love for his church, I will enter this relationship and maintain it with an entirely new motivation, one hinted at by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: “So we make it our goal to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). The goal of my marriage will be to please God.