What are the most important things in a marriage? I think the #1 thing is for the couple to be “Equally yoked”. A yoke is something the farmers use when teaming up two oxen or donkeys to say, pull a cart. The yoke is a long heavy wooden piece that connects to both animals. With the connection, the effort of the two animals is combined into one force. If one falters for a moment, the other pulls it along and vice a versa.

When I talk about a couple being equally yoked, I am primarily speaking about their spiritual life; if one member of the marriage is Christian and the other Jewish, they would be unequally yoked. When anything, just life happens then each of the couple will approach it from different perspectives, making it very difficult to reach resolution in a lot of issues that WILL come up in marriage.

Being equally yoked also speaks to other areas of our lives as well as marriage. Think about these yokings in terms of how they would affect marriage, the work place and parenting for instance: one person has a strong work ethic and the other is lazy, one is well-educated and the other is not, one is very materialistic and the other is not, one is constantly worried about what others think and the other is not. This is not to say that people who marry and are unequally yoked will never make it as husband and wife. It means that they better go into the situation with open eyes and willingness to roll up their sleeves and put in so time to work through the differences as soon as possible. If they wait and a crises comes before these things have been worked through, then the small stuff will appear in the crises as a giant monster doing all it can to slay your relationship.

Also remember that we are all involved in a spiritual battle every day; especially those of us who are believers in Christ. The enemy; Satan will use whatever he can to pull us away from our faith and effectiveness for God’s Kingdom. If that means alienating you and your spouse from one another then that is exactly what he will do. Again, if your relationship is strong and you have worked through many issues while calm and rational then you will be much better prepared for spiritual warfare in your marriage.

Kris and I were both Christians when we were married and were equally yoked in almost all areas of our relationship. I have to tell you that I believe that this one factor is the reason why, while our marriage has had its ups and downs, it has never been tough. I think that another factor in that is that neither of us has ever insisted that things be our way. We have always (mostly) been able to step back and see our own foolishness and come to an agreement on whatever the issue was. One area of marriage that will really exercise this muscle of submitting to one another and not insisting on your own way is parenting. If one of you tends to be the tough one and the other the more lenient one . . . it is a good ying and yang . . . to cover both perspectives, but it is also an area of differing opinions and when it is dealing with our kids . . . .we can get pretty passionate about our respective positions. Many times we both will have the same desired outcome in our parenting but the route we choose to get there may be widely different. Try to remember that you are not the expert in this . . . neither of you are and so you each have good, valid points but neither of you is infallible or right all the time. Now don’t point that statement at your spouse . . . it is intended for you to point it at yourself!
In summary; before entering into any relationship be it marriage, business, volunteering, look at the yoking and if it is not equal, how out of whack is it. If you choose to move forward with an unequally yoked relationship at least discuss and work on the differences before moving forward. The heat of battle is NOT the time for working on your “stuff”!