Monsoons in Your Marriage?
by Joe Leavell
Days reaching over 100 degrees can occur over 100 days a year here in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. This particular year, we have already had 31 days reaching over 110 (and counting)! What has made this present summer seem much less bearable than most is the late arrival of one of our summer treasures:
Monsoon season.
No, this isn’t some form of monster truck madness. Monsoons are intense thunderstorms that rage through the desert, dumping nearly 50% of the state’s average yearly rainfall in just a couple of months. These seasonal storms start off ugly with walls of dust called a ‘haboob’ that can stretch up to 100 miles across, rise 10,000 feet into the air, and carry wind gusts into the 50-60 mph range. These dust clouds really look impressive, and can sometimes make the news in other parts of the country. Locals, however, see it as just another annoying dust storm that will hopefully give way to monsoon rains.
While the winds of these storms are often destructive to trees, and can even damage roofs of homes, these intense, massive cloudbursts that follow the dust give a much-needed reprieve from the summer heat, and provide the ground some critically important moisture.
Rivers form quickly in the washes and storm drains back up causing varying levels of flooding, depending on the year.
Yet, with all that water, why are we still a desert? Why are we still a state full of Saguaro cacti, scorpions, and roadrunners? Why does this rainfall not transform our summers into a tropical climate where canopies of vegetation sprout, native toucans and other exotic birds can thrive?
The answer should be obvious. While these immense storms bring a lot of rain, it all comes at once over the course of a few months, rather than the regular rhythms of daily rain that sustain a rainforest climate. While we can get several inches of rain in the summer months, the ground here is dry and hard from months between storms. Much of that rain simply runs off and doesn’t have the time, or sustaining force to permeate the ground.
To be sure, monsoons are amazing to watch, and are helpful in sustaining life in the desert. The reality is, though, that metropolitan life in Phoenix, Tucson, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles would not be possible on nearly the scale of tens of millions of people without the incredible amounts of water that pour out of the Colorado Rockies every year through our region. Even with that continuing support, it is not nearly enough to begin to change our environment from an arid wilderness to a tropical paradise.
The Making of a Monsoon Marriage
After years of marriage, has the love slowly continued to dry up? Is the word “desert” the right one to describe your relationship? Do you try grand sacrificial gestures, promises of change, exotic and expensive family trips, extravagant presents…hoping something will help?
These often do little to nothing to move the needle as you and your spouse continue to grow further and further apart.
What happened?
Like the deserts of Arizona, many couples go through lengthy dry seasons of life where they live as virtual strangers. With kids, work, bills, responsibilities, repairs, more bills, health, or fatigue, who has the time for real romance? They think that all that is necessary to sustain their love is a trip to Disney, the beach, the mountains, or a Valentine’s Day full of flowers and hearts. Maybe even grandparents can watch the kids for a romantic rendezvous from time to time.
Like our monsoon season, these types of gestures are certainly a helpful reprieve to those who are suffering in a loveless desert, for sure. However, these massive relationship dumps do very little to change the climate in a couple’s lasting affection. Why? Because whenever the ground or the heart is hard, it simply does not have the ability to soak up the sheer amounts of moisture at one time, and much of the effort runs off.
A Change in the Marital Climate
Solomon notes in Ecclesiastes 9:9, “Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.”
Notice that Solomon doesn’t encourage simply enjoying an occasional trip or a rare date with your spouse. His expression is that enjoyment is to be a regular, daily occurrence throughout our short lifetime as a reward for our hard work. This is again not to discourage the grand, but to invite you to begin to change the relational climate by building a life that involves a regular cadence of time, communication, friendship, and love.
The God Who Brings Water to the Desert
Scripture often uses our desert analogy to reflect God’s provision for His people, both literal water to Israel in the wilderness, and the Living Water through Christ. Ultimately, the sustaining love that is needed in a marriage is merely a reflection of the relationship that God has given to those who fellowship with Him through the Gospel. Grandiose gestures of giving money, missions trips, etc. are not enough to sustain a close relationship with the Lord. He calls on us to spend time with Him, abiding in, and enjoying His presence. His love then flows into us and sustains us like a tree planted by the water. In that way, our hard hearts continue to grow soft and fertile to sustainable growth.
Changes Take Time
It would take quite a lot of months, if not years of regular rainfall, to change the climate of a desert into a paradise. Many who come for counsel anticipate that the years of neglect can be solved in a matter of a few sessions. This “quick change” mindset is part of what caused the problem in the first place. This is true in their relationship with Christ, as well as in their marriage.
Some might think to use counseling to bring water to their desert like the Colorado River, yet this alone is not the path to sustained change. Counseling from God’s Word, and putting in the effort to establish His design, can be a pivotal help in a change of direction. Re-establishing your relationship on a more fully biblical footing will require intentional, sustained, and lasting care.
The change you are seeking won’t occur from just a few counseling sessions and some nice dates together. There is an entire ecosystem that you have built over the years that has dried up the love in your relationship. Regular rain transforms a desert over time, and regular time devoted to God and each other are key ingredients for the seeds of love to bloom and grow again.
We would love to take you back to God’s Word to show you how to do this on a practical level!
