My Wonderful Husband Makes a Terrible God

Two years of marriage have taught me a myriad of things.

• Learning to sleep in the same bed as someone else is hard.
• Serving the local church alongside your spouse is a special joy.
• Folding the laundry the same day that you wash and dry it requires a level of sanctification that the Lord has not yet wrought in me. 

While it didn’t take me long to learn about the abyss that is laundry, it did, unfortunately, take me a while to recognize how quickly sneaky sins like idolatry can pile up in your marriage. 

Growing up, I didn’t see many healthy marriages, so the concept of enjoying marriage and having a husband who is a gentle, loving friend was foreign to me—until I got married. It didn’t take me more than a few days after saying “I will” to start believing that my husband hung the moon, the stars, and everything else in the galaxy. 

While this is an exaggeration, I did find myself turning to my husband for my joy, my identity, and lasting satisfaction rather than the Lord. Delighting in a healthy, God-honoring marriage is a gift, but even the best gifts can become stained when our hearts aren’t rightly ordered.

Recognizing

When you desperately love someone or something, it can be difficult to realize that you are elevating that good thing to a place it was never meant to hold. Idolatry is a dangerous sin with real consequences, and Scripture warns us to guard our hearts against it.

It was John Calvin who once said that our human hearts are “idol factories,” and it doesn’t take many trips around the sun to experience this firsthand. We are quick to set our affections on things other than Christ and then exalt them onto a throne in our hearts. The problem is that if something else is on the throne of your heart, Christ isn’t in His proper place.

Scripture is incredibly clear about how our Lord feels about this. In Exodus 20:3–5, God plainly lays the command out to Moses: 

Do not have other gods besides me. Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God.

At this point, you might be thinking, I don’t worship my husband. I’ve never prayed to him, and I certainly don’t think of him as God. That may be true, but idolatry isn’t just about bowing in worship; it’s about what holds our ultimate trust and devotion. John Piper defines an idol as “anything that we come to rely on for some blessing, or help, or guidance in the place of a wholehearted reliance on the true and living God.”¹

If I’m being honest, that definition describes how I sometimes view my husband. What about you?

• Do you often find yourself valuing your husband’s approval more than God’s?
• Do you expect your husband to be the “thing” that brings you fulfillment and satisfaction?
• Has your time with the Lord become less so that you can spend more time with your husband?
• Do you rely on your husband more than you rely on the Lord?
• Has your husband become the basis for your identity rather than who you are in Christ?

Let me be clear: the issue here isn’t loving, honoring, or cherishing your husband—those are good and godly things. The problem arises when your husband takes the place of a wholehearted reliance on the true and living God. It is then that your perspective shifts and the foundation of your joy, security, and identity becomes misplaced. 

Reckoning

There are three big problems when your husband becomes an idol.

1. Idolatry attempts to give glory that belongs to God to someone else.

God alone deserves to sit on the throne of your heart. When we give that place to someone or something else, we attempt to rob Him of the glory that is rightfully His. Isaiah 42:8 says, “I am the LORD. That is my name, and I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.” 

Our God is a jealous God—not in a flawed human way but in the righteous and rightful way of the all-mighty, sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the universe. We are commanded to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind, both for His glory and for our own good. When He is not preeminent in our hearts and lives, our priorities fall out of order and our joy will be incomplete.

2. Idolatry puts pressure and responsibilities on your husband that he was never meant to carry.

My wonderful husband makes a terrible god. He was never meant to shoulder the responsibility of being all-satisfying, all-knowing, or all-encompassing. Your husband, no matter how wonderful, is also a finite human being. He cannot satisfy your every need, anticipate your every thought, nor bear the weight of your soul’s deepest longings. 

When you expect your husband to fulfill you in ways that only God can, you place an impossible burden on him—one he was never designed to carry. No matter how devoted your husband is, he will inevitably fall short—not because he doesn't love you but because he is an imperfect human. If you look to your husband to do what only the Lord can, you will both end up exhausted, disappointed, and hurt. But when the Lord is your ultimate source of joy, you are free to love your husband as he is—without expecting him to be what only God can be.

This does not mean you shouldn’t have expectations for your husband to love, support, and care for you. A healthy, God-honoring marriage includes mutual service, encouragement, and meeting each other’s needs in tangible ways. However, there is a difference between expecting your husband to love you well and expecting him to be the ultimate source of your joy, peace, and fulfillment.

3. If you are loving your husband first, you are loving him wrong. 

When your love for your husband surpasses your love for God—even unintentionally—you are breaking the greatest commandment (Matt. 22:37). When our affections are rightly ordered, our love for others is strengthened, not diminished. But when we place our husband above God, we invert this order.

True, selfless love is only possible when rooted in Christ, because apart from Him, our love is driven by our own needs and desires rather than by His perfect example. Loving your husband well means loving God first. It means acknowledging that your husband is a gift, not the Giver. It means enjoying the blessing of marriage without letting it overshadow the One who instituted it.

Reorienting

The good news is that God, in His grace, helps us reorient our hearts when we turn from lesser things and seek Him first. So, how do you practically guard your heart against idolatry while still loving your husband well?

• Prioritize your time with the Lord. Make daily time with the Lord a non-negotiable part of your life.
• Examine your heart regularly. Be honest with yourself about where your affections lie. The list of questions above is a great place to start. If you recognize that your husband has become an idol, ask the Lord to help you re-center your heart.
• Cultivate a heart of gratitude. Thank God for your husband and recognize that he is a gift from the Lord. Gratitude helps keep your heart rightly oriented toward the Giver rather than the gift.