I’ve been married for 26 years and have 7 children. I got married young, with no money and nothing material to offer. But I married with God. That sentence sums up something that sounds almost countercultural today: getting married not out of calculation, but out of conviction.
Because the reality we’re living in Spain today is very different from what I lived 26 years ago. In the 1980s the average age to get married was 24; when I got married, in the year 2000, it had already risen to 30; today it’s 36. In the 1980s, with 35 million inhabitants, around 600,000 people got married each year in Spain; today, with 49 million inhabitants, marriages don’t even reach 300,000 a year — and on top of that, between 110,000 and 120,000 divorces are recorded every year. And the hardest statistic of all: in 1980, with 35 million inhabitants, more than 570,000 children were born each year; today, with 49 million, births don’t even reach 300,000 — and more than half are born outside of marriage. It isn’t just a social statistic — it’s an entire generation growing up on a foundation God never designed to hold it.
1. REJECTING GOD’S DESIGN
The first and most serious problem isn’t just social — it’s spiritual. Marriage isn’t a human idea: it’s a design of God, established from the very beginning of creation.
“Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?” Matthew 19:4-6
Marriage is a covenant instituted by God. When society decides to ignore it and choose cohabitation without commitment, it isn’t simply choosing an alternative lifestyle — it’s rejecting its Creator’s original design.
2. THE COUNTERFEIT COMMITMENT
Many people today want the benefits of marriage without the commitment it requires. They want intimacy, cohabitation, sex, companionship… but without tying themselves legally or spiritually. It’s love without risk: staying together while things go well, but with the door always left open.
Sex outside of marriage is sin — not because God wants to withhold something good from us, but because He designed it to be lived within the marriage covenant, since it binds two people together in a deep spiritual and emotional way. It’s like an emotional glue God created to join a man and woman together for life — when used outside that context, it bonds what God never authorized it to bond, and that only creates confusion: people who feel bonded to someone who isn’t really right for them, simply because of physical attraction or good treatment while the sexual relationship lasts. It’s no coincidence that the sin of sexual immorality is mentioned more than 300 times in the Bible — according to Paul, it’s a sin committed against one’s own body, not just against another person.
To couples who come to me saying “pastor, I don’t know if I should marry this person,” I usually give a direct answer: stop having sex for a while, and you’ll see clearly whether you truly want to marry each other, or whether all that was really there was the glue.
3. THE “FOR NOW” CULTURE
Many couples live together “to see how it goes.” They treat marriage as an experiment, not a covenant.
“When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it.” Ecclesiastes 5:4-5
The marriage God designed is a lifelong covenant, not a temporary contract that can be cancelled when someone gets tired. That’s precisely the difference between a covenant and a contract: a contract breaks when it’s no longer convenient; a covenant holds even when it costs something.
4. WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A SPOUSE
The Bible gives clear criteria for choosing who to marry, and none of them start with looks or money.
“Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” 2 Corinthians 6:14
My wife had this requirement crystal clear since she was a child, long before she met me: whoever she married had to love God. When we met, I had spent my whole life in Catholic schools and had even been an altar boy, but by university I had become an unbeliever. She kept inviting me to a meeting, until one bored day I agreed to go. We had only known each other for three weeks. That night I watched the brothers and sisters flipping through their Bibles from one passage to another, and I thought: I’m ignorant of the Word of God. Right then I felt an overwhelming desire to truly know Christ. We got married two years later.
Character and the heart matter more than appearance too. When God sent Samuel to anoint Israel’s future king, Samuel saw Jesse’s oldest son — tall and strong — and thought, “surely the LORD’s anointed is before him.”
“Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature… for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
We tend to be superficial people: we look at the container, not the content. But money, career, or looks come and go — what sustains a marriage is that the other person loves God and has a good heart.
5. GETTING MARRIED EVEN WHILE POOR
God commands marrying and having children even in the midst of financial hardship. Waiting to have “everything figured out” before getting married isn’t biblical wisdom — it’s often fear disguised as prudence.
“Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters.” Jeremiah 29:6
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD.” Psalm 127:3
“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.” Proverbs 18:22
At 24, my father didn’t even want me to get married and didn’t help us at all with the wedding. We got married in complete poverty: we had nothing for the dress, nothing for the ceremony, nothing for the engagement ring. And yet, right there where I found a wife, I found a good thing — and I obtained God’s favor, exactly as His word promises. That doesn’t apply when someone lives in sexual immorality: it’s impossible for there to be blessing over sin. But if you marry well, there’s going to be great blessing there.
Children aren’t a financial problem to indefinitely postpone: they’re an inheritance from God. And marriage isn’t something to delay until reaching a certain level of stability — from the very beginning, it’s God’s plan for the couple.
CONCLUSION
Marriage according to God is a gift, a covenant, and a blessing — not a human experiment or a disposable contract. In a world that marries less and less, where cohabitation without commitment has become the norm, the Church must go back to saying with conviction: “Yes, Lord, we marry according to your design.”
If you’re single, examine what expectations you bring into marriage. If you’re married, examine whether your marriage holds together as a covenant or simply as a comfortable arrangement. And if you’ve failed in this area, there is hope: God doesn’t cast aside those who repent and return to His design.
