Marriage Mysteries Unraveled

How often it’s more like Another Marriage Unraveled by the Mysteries of Life – but the truth is that while marriage takes hard work, in the end – it’s still pretty straight-forward.   We have been called individually to a life of holiness.   If that becomes the sincere goal in our life, then the rest truly does fall well into place.

It gave Daniel the ability to walk with confidence into the fiery furnace and lion’s den, and ultimately what gives us the ability to live with someone of the opposite sex who is so-o-o different from ourselves.

In his book “What Did You Expect?” Paul David Tripp shares how an injury that might leave us with a stiff knee may give us a hard time walking.  At first the pain causes us to limp and we are quite aware of it.  But over time it becomes less and less noticeable to us – to the point we do not notice it at all.  It has become the new and almost comfortable norm.  Then we run into a seldom seen friend who is startled by it.

We forget we have this “unnoticed limp” over time until someone who knew us long ago, brings it up. Left untreated the knee continues to deteriorate until it painfully comes back to our awareness – often requiring more repair than we would have needed if we’d dealt with it earlier.

Just as wounded knees do not heal themselves, and must be repaired by skilled technicians called therapist or surgeon – so our marriage easily drifts into an unnoticed limp – a new norm that misses the wonderful plan of God to become a great display case to others of the Kingdom of Christ, and live out the greatest tool of evangelism I believe God has given mankind.

We have a choice.  We can let time, neglect, apathy, busy-ness, and sin, slowly unravel our marriage or we can put prayer, time, fun, education, spiritual and emotional connecting effort into our marriage and arrive at a display case worthy of King Jesus.

Love is a purposeful, unconditional, sacrificial giving to our God and is often revealed in how we love our spouse.  The model for us is Christ on the cross.  We can only reach this ‘agape’ kind of love by recognizing that we are able to love only because He first loved us (1 John 4:19), and with intentionality seek to  live before Him in ways that help us live out of Romans 12:9-19, and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

seeing Galatians 6:22-23 as the result:

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Where do we begin?  We must surrender ourselves to God and work on our vertical relationship with Christ.  Recognize that the list above is impossible for us in our own strength – that our surrender reveals a sold out personal love for Christ that comes from, and is returned in faithful gratitude, TO God.  His grace is truly sufficient for us and it is our love from and to Him that makes it happen.  As we grow the vision of Christ living in “me”, He will change and MOLD our character into godliness – and when we have the intention to become all that He designed “me” to become, He provides the means to achieve it.

A marriage without work never works, because good marriages never happen by accident.  A lazy coasting marriage produces emptiness, mediocrity and disaster, a marriage built on a vision of God’s plan, with intention to live that vision, has the Christ given means and opportunity for marital growth.

Your marriage may be brand new or better than it once was; BUT it is not yet ALL it could be. God’s desire is that your marriage be a great display-case for the relationship between Christ and the church – lifting the Kingdom of God not the kingdom of self.  Life is to be lived and shaped by the relationship we have with Christ as we choose to live our lives with His plan for our lives always on our horizon, in our thinking and actions.