Marriage Yields Compound Interest
Reflecting on (Nearly) 15 years of Marriage
This weekend, the grandparents are graciously taking our four kiddos so Samantha and I can get some dedicated, uninterrupted time together. We’re coming out of a busy season so I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. While locking in our final plans, I’ve been reflecting on God’s goodness in his design of this wonderful institution we call, “marriage.” It seems to me that the joys, the blessings, and the sanctification that come from marriage tend to work a lot like compound interest.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s say you’re a smart 18 year old (unlike I was) and you start investing $150 a month into a retirement account that yields an average annual interest of 6%. You stick with it. Every paycheck you set aside some so you can faithfully put $150 every month into that account. By the time you retire at 65, you’ll have put in $84,600. But because of the power of compound interest, when you retire what you’ll actually have in your account is $433,977.50.
Now, let’s say you wait to begin investing until you’re 30. You still do the $150 a month. You still average a 6% return. By retirement age, you’ll have put in $63,000. Compound interest will still do its thing. But when you retire, your account value will only be $200,582.60. That’s obviously still significantly more than the money you put in and something to be celebrated. But it’s a massive difference in the final return.
As I look back on our nearly fifteen years of marriage, I see the compound interest adding up.
When I met my wife in college, I was studying at a barely full-time pace and working extremely part-time, making barely above minimum wage as a janitor at the local YMCA. I played hours of video games every week and especially on weekends. I had no driver’s license, mostly because I couldn’t afford to buy a car or pay the monthly insurance cost. So I mooched rides and rode my bike everywhere. My life had almost no structure.
To be clear, the Lord graciously saved me several months before I met Samantha so he was already making me aware of some of my sins of laziness and self-centeredness. But in his kindness, God hit the accelerator when I laid my eyes on this beautiful, smart, ambitious girl on the college soccer field.
I soon learned that this girl was taking more college credits than me, working more hours than me, and living on her own. I was totally enamored with her. And at the same time, she made me painfully aware of how behind I was. It was one thing to listen to a sermon podcast and have a preacher tell me through my iPod ear buds to be a man. It was another thing to look into this stunning woman’s eyes and see reflected back the distance I needed to cover in order to realistically pursue a relationship with her. I wanted to marry this girl and I couldn’t legally drive.
For reasons beyond what I can fathom, my wife patiently waited for me to begin the late metamorphosis of transforming from a boy into a man. I learned to drive and got my license. I started working nearly full-time at Wal-Mart (the only place I could get a job) while continuing to take full-time credits. I bought a car and the insurance to go with it.
We got married at 21 (my wife was 19). A lot of people were excited for us. But some thought it was way too early. Finish college first. Get a good job. You’re rushing it. But we weren’t. We were following God’s good design.
Three years later, God blessed us with our first child - my sweet daughter, Grace. After that, a child arrived about every two years until we had four. In that time, I graduated college. Got my first real job. Began pursuing ministry. Got my first real ministry job. Graduated seminary. Bought my first shop-vac (okay, this one’s not as big a deal, but man those things are powerful). My responsibilities expanded my capacities.
And all the while I increasingly learned how to love and serve both my wife and my kids. I grew in my love for God and his word. My wife grew as well. She is an incredible homeschool mom who can still handle way more than I can because she’s an Amazon woman. She’s grown in her own love for the Lord in beautiful ways. We’ve encouraged and built one another up for a decade and a half. Lord willing, we still have several decades to go. And as we do so, the interest continues compounding.
Now let’s pause for a moment.
The median marriage age for men is 30 and 28 for women. If Samantha and I had followed the current path, we’d be coming up on our fifth anniversary, not our fifteenth. Rather than having recently celebrated our fourth child’s fourth birthday, Samantha would be pregnant with our second. It’s hard for me to wrap my mind around how different our lives would be. We got married a decade earlier than our culture and I wouldn’t trade that decision for anything in the world.
I want to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone who wants to get married “early” can get married early. God’s providence is the ultimate determining factor in this. But if God brings someone into your life who genuinely loves Jesus and is striving to grow in Christ-likeness, and you like them and they like you…get married. Don’t wait. Just go for it. Start having kids right away.
When God makes man and woman in his own image in Genesis 1, he blesses them and gives them these instructions: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Do you see the progression in this passage? The order God lays out?
Our culture wants us to be fruitful (marriage and kids) after taking dominion (getting the degree, the house, getting a few rungs up the corporate ladder, etc.), which is a reversal of God’s blueprint. First, God brings a man and woman together as husband and wife. Then he calls them to have children. And finally they bring dominion.1
Again, everyone is on God’s timeline. If you are single and the Lord has not yet brought someone into your life to pursue in marriage, use the time well. Get the degree. Buy the house. Work your job. Serve your church. Don’t waste the season.
But if you have found someone (men, I’m speaking especially to you here), stop waiting for the right conditions. God’s blessings in marriage compound over time which means that your waiting for certain material blessings delays and diminishes the spiritual blessings the Lord designed for you. There are good things God wants to get done in you (and your future spouse) in the context of getting married and having kids. There are joys to be forged in those fires. Hard things? Absolutely. But if both of you love the Lord, the good will far outweigh the bad.
So get married. Have little image bearers. And let the blessings start to compound.
And, really, being fruitful (having kids) is part of what it means to bring meaningful, God-glorifying dominion to the world. Having children is bringing dominion.
My wife and I got married at the same ages that you were (I was 21, she was 19). We just celebrated 6 years. I’m encouraged by your words, and thankful to be in the season we’re in. Hoping I can be like you in another 10 years!
Great post! We got married at 20 & 23 and celebrated 50 years two weeks ago. We had met at a church camp in 1966, drifted apart and began dating in 1971. When I look at how that first date came about, there is no way on earth that it could have happened without His intervention. It has been a wonderful 50 years. Hopefully He has written in 60 years and perhaps even 70. Time will tell.