“Sometimes I wonder if marriage is overrated.”

When the talk show host said this to me on live TV, I saw real anxiety in her eyes.

It was the day after Valentines, when love was still “on the air.” She and her co-host — both single and youngish — had asked me to weigh in on the fact that divorce statistics for Christian marriage were as bad as those for secular society.

This sad fact underscores the reality that being a Christian is no guarantee that one can effectively give or receive enduring love.

I appreciated my host’s honesty; I knew she was voicing the ponder of many single Christians. Here I offer my answer to the question, after over 40 years of marriage.

The only thing overrated about marriage is the concept of “good chemistry.”

This is the notion that what we walk into marriage with — by way of personality, habits and character traits — will either make or break the marriage, with nothing to be done if it does break. Relationships are living things that take time to build, and faith in one another.

Authentic, life-giving love is a learned behavior, not a lab experiment or the bully influence of DNA. As for assuming Christians have an edge, the fact is that salvation is a doorway to a living relationship with the Holy Spirit, and some Christians live their lives camped out on the threshold of that life — saved, but largely uninfluenced by God’s strength and ability to love.

Unless we deliberately relate to the greatest lover of all — The Lord — we may remain as bad at loving as the lost souls around us. In fact, insofar as we pull out the “rules” and judgments that often attend a Christian outlook, we may be WORSE lovers, willing to trample on our spouses in the process of pursuing our religious ideologies.

Marriage is wonderful, even when it is not delightful.

When we do relate to the Spirit of the Lord, allowing Him to guide and influence us as we navigate a shared life, marriage, even when imperfect, offers comfort and joy, companionship and a home for the heart.

What I saw in that TV host’s eyes mirrored the fear I once felt: of getting into a permanent relationship that would turn out to be painful or profoundly disappointing.

Anyone familiar with our story knows that my husband-to-be actually wrote me a “guarantee” that our marriage would work — a guarantee that neither one of us could enforce. But when our marriage failed, we learned that the only true Guarantor of a satisfying love relationship is the Lord himself. He is the original no-holds-barred, I’ll-give-everything-for-you lover. Anyone who thinks God and romance are polar opposites doesn’t know Him yet.

God created marriage for our joy

I was being interviewed on TV that day as part of a book tour when my book, The Woman God Designed was released.

I wrote this book because after becoming a Christian, and then a pastor’s wife, I went through all the challenges that transformation brings — as a Christian; as a woman growing into her design, and as a woman entering the role of wife. I wanted to help other women taste the joy of knowing God, of experiencing a good marriage, of finding rest and contentment as a woman.

My marriage wasn’t easy. It was often challenging, and I wanted to run away more than once. But I sought to know this God I had chosen to embrace, and leaned fully into the help His Spirit was advertised to offer. As a result I learned to how to be a lover. In the process, I found the deep contentment, joy and strength that comes as the reward for signing up for the work marriage requires.

How to ensure you’ll have a marriage of enduring romance.

This was the second question I was asked in that interview: how can one be sure they will have a relationship of enduring romance? My answer was a simple summation of all I had learned so far: “Be a great lover.”

The best way to guarantee you will find and enjoy a great love in life is to determine that YOU will be a good lover. When even one party in a relationship deliberately works at that goal, love will always be in the air. It is highly contagious. Being a good lover is the best way to guarantee that you will be well loved.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that you can’t do it alone. The good news is that God can.

This is among the life lessons I share in The Woman God Designed, along with knowing God in daily life, trusting Him to heal the wounds of loving, and offering God the opportunity to satisfy your heart when people fail you.

I am not and have never been a perfect woman, and I don’t have a perfect marriage. What I have is a lifetime of love, disappointment, joy and fullness of life — the many blessings of having a lifelong companion.

Marriage is absolutely NOT overrated.