Lindsay writes in to ask Pastor John, you've spoken before about how you've walked through

some challenging seasons and marriage over the years, if you can go back in time to give

yourself some of the most important wisdom about marriage that you've learned in the

trenches, what would you say to a younger John Piper?

What expectations would you tell him to relinquish and what would you tell him to practice?

I would say to him, John, behold the mystery of this union, behold the mystery of this

amazing God-wrought union, for all the millions of marriages on the earth, none of them is

merely human, including yours.

None of them, yours included, is merely natural.

They're all more, they're all amazing, so lift up your eyes, John Piper, young, newly married

John Piper, lift up your eyes to see what you've gotten yourself into here.

An amazing God-wrought mystery, Mark 10, 9, what God has joined together, let not man separate.

So this is a God-made mystery.

The pastor, when he said, I now pronounce you man and wife, didn't do it.

He didn't do it.

God did it, what God has joined together.

So marriage is not man-made, not even for unbelievers is it man-made.

God joins people through promise and covenant and union into one flesh, something new has

come into existence.

So John Piper, lift up your eyes onto this reality and realize the unending implications

of this for your life, and one of them is it's unbreakable.

Only death, there's no back door to this, so no Ellen I said, and I would say to myself

...