Our Marriage Exists to Make Disciples.

If I had a dollar for every time my husband and/or I have been asked if we plan to have kids, we'd be rich. I got a little offended at the questions at first, but I am coming to accept and even expect them. As my husband pointed out, most people are just innocently curious. Others really care about us and our plans and want to pray for us. We appreciate that. And as I read recently, maybe I need to develop a thicker skin and better boundaries around conversation.

For the record, I don't plan to discuss family planning in this post. What I do plan to discuss is the purpose of our marriage: to make disciples. My husband and I discussed this long before we got married, and our stance hasn't changed. As believers in Jesus Christ for salvation, we are called to fulfill The Great Commission: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit "(Matt 28:19, New International Version). We were called to fulfill this mission before we got married, and by God's grace and the Holy Spirit's power, we were. He worked at a church and with kids in church ministry. I worked in a professional vocation that caused me to interact with kids and families in a way that pointed them to the eternal hope of Jesus, even if I could not say His name. Marriage just added another avenue by which to disciple. (See Francis Chan's book You and Me, Forever for a more thorough discussion of this topic.)

Having biological kids is not always an option. Some people are called to foster and/or adopt. Some people love other people's kids as godparents. Some people work in vocational mystery with kids. We don't want to pin down or forecast what God has for us. But what we do want to do is keep making disciples. We want to keep speaking the name of Jesus where we are able to do so. We want to keep supporting missions and mission work in word, action, and deed. We want to keep engaging in conversations about faith, both with loved ones, and with people God brings to us, or sends us out to. We want to be faithful and good stewards of what God has given us.

Marriage exists because God ordained it. Marriage exists to model Christ and the church. To demean marriage to simply an avenue by which to propagate the earth is to make marriage small. We have a larger view:

Our marriage exists to make disciples, but grace, through faith in Christ Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

That's the drop dead goal, folks. By God's grace, may we walk in it.