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Prior Editions
A Good
Thing!
Today, Carol and I are celebrating our fifteenth wedding anniversary in
Ocean City, MD. Appropriate in some
ways because this is where we spent our honeymoon in 1988.
I’ve been thinking about this day a lot and I wanted to share with you
some of those thoughts.
We’ve
been married just long enough that a lot of our friends are breaking up.
It’s distressing to me how casually folks are treating what God
intended to be one of the most serious decisions of our lives.
Recently a friend was leaving his wife of 18 years because he was
“unhappy, bored and looking for a change”.
He told me “My sons {they’re 15, 12 and 9} are old enough that this
won’t have any lasting effect on them.”
That’s the kind of casual feeling that amazes and stuns me.
God wants something more -- especially from those of us who claim to be
his disciples. God wants us to
perfect our marriages by walking together through the most difficult and
terrible moments of our lives. Not
to bail the minute the wind starts to blow from the wrong direction!
I
continue to learn that marriage is more about my commitments than about my
emotions.
I’m not afraid to admit that Carol and I don’t agree on everything.
I’m not afraid to admit that there are times when we see things very
differently. I happen to think
it’s one of the best things about our marriage.
And in spite of those moments when I get frustrated or angry, I am still
overwhelmed by the goodness of God that brought the goodness of Carol into my
life. Carol said something when we
were talking about getting married that I’ve never forgotten.
She said, “If divorce is even an option, tell me now.
And it’s over now. If we
get married our commitment has to be that we’ll figure out a way to get
through it together – for better or for worse.”
I’ve never regretted that commitment because it takes over when the
vagaries of my emotions overtake me.
I am
convinced that the Word teaches us that marriage is about partnership.
It’s about two people who spend their lives bringing their own wills
into submission for the benefit of the other.
It’s about two people devoting their lives to a common good –
God’s! God’s plan takes
precedence even over the plans that we make together.
I would go so far as to say that God laughs at our plans.
Ephesians tells us, “you will submit to one another out of love
for Christ!” That’s partnership!
That is two people becoming one flesh.
I wish I could say that Christian marriages fair better than those in
society at large. But the fact of
the matter is that 1 in 2 marriages ends in divorce – Christian and
non-Christian alike. My prayer is
that marriage once again becomes “Holy Matrimony”.
I think when we lost that sense of Holy – we lost something essential
to the success of marriage. We lost
the sense of God’s approval, God’s design and God’s continued involvement.
The final word about marriage – It’s a good thing!
And it’s a God thing. His
desire is strong marriages, committed partnerships and growing relationships. Perhaps
that begins with a sense of the Holy; a sense of God’s intimate involvement in
our marriages.
Godspeed,
Pastor John
Mid-Week
Musings
An
Occasional bulletin from Christ United Methodist Church
Prior Editions
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