The Shared Benefits of Being Teammates

I just got off the phone with my girlfriend, Maddy, who was telling me about some circumstances that were stressing her out. As she described her stressors, I walked through them with her, asking questions to help figure out what her next steps should be. By the end of the conversation I could tell that she was already feeling relieved, and she thanked me for helping her mentally process through everything. In that conversation I gave her my time, my attention, and my energy without expecting anything in return, yet I found myself feeling happy.

The reason why it made me so happy to see her stressed being relieved is because she’s my teammate. Her stress is my stress, and when we fix her problems, it feels like we’re fixing my own problems. Because we’re on the same team, her success is my own success. When either one of us experiences a victory, then our entire team participates in that victory and enjoys the benefits of it.

Maybe this “team” mentality is part of the reason why scripture teaches that marriage turns “two people into one.” Even though Maddy and I are only dating, we still get to experience some of the team-like unification that happens within a marriage.

When I thought about being on a team with Maddy, it made me think about what it’s like to be unified with Christ. The Bible describes marriage as a symbol of Christ’s relationship with the church. In the same way that a both members of a marriage team get to share victories, the church gets to share victories with Christ. When Jesus succeeds, we who are in his church also succeed (because we are on the same team as him). Jesus’s victory is our victory, and we get to participate in his victory and enjoy its benefits. Because Jesus lives forever, we will also live forever. We get to enjoy his eternal life and participate in it because we are his bride.