I Choose You…

“I choose you!”  It’s more than just a phrase from Mary Jane’s favorite Christmas movie – Family Man, although it is a crucial turning point in the movie.  It’s also what we hear implied in Ephesians 1:4 as God chose you and me before the foundation of the world and predestined us to adoption as sons through Christ.  Deeper into the Scriptures the opportunity to choose is given to us all in Romans 10:9-11: “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”

  We have the opportunity to choose our education, where to live, career, where to spend our free time, and a whole lot more. For varied reasons we each chose our spouse, and now daily we must choose to live out that choice as unconditional, or bail and make other choices that in the end move us away from God, because with every choice there are consequences.  Some are good, some not so…

It’s choice that starts affairs, drugs, alcohol, gambling, and using pornography, and each of these lead to disastrous consequences – sometimes quickly, but inevitably for sure over time.

Romans 10:13 tells us that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved to eternal life with God.  Now that’s a powerful consequence.  Romans also tells us that we all fall short of God’s grace on our own and are declared sinners, and that without choosing Christ the consequence is spiritual death and eternal separation from God.

Our feelings may be involved in what we love, but loving is and always has been a choice.  In life and marriage as time passes, it often becomes a daily choice, seeming sometimes to be a chore, or burden, but God has promised that as we among  those He has adopted into His family, obey His Word, we will receive blessings upon blessing in heaven for our choice.

Dallas Willard said that it should be more than just choosing right things for those that God has called (chosen). He said we should become the kind of people who would chose those things out of our transformed character.  The deeper we love and trust God, the more what Dallas said becomes a reality in our lives.  We know it’s in the grinding of life, not the easy times that God develops our Christ-like character.

As we head into Summer I propose we challenge ourselves to make a daily choice to love our spouse in rich ways.  Perhaps ask the question of each other:  On a scale of 1-10 where do you see me as a husband/wife and where is the health of our marriage?  Follow that up with:  Is there one thing I can do today that will move that marker upward?

For some folks, summer lightens up the schedule, and for others it intensifies.  If you are among those who can carve 15-20 minutes a day with your spouse, I encourage you to choose to read John Gottman’s book: “Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” and use some of the exercises he gives to draw closer to your spouse.   Read it out loud to one another – it will feed your soul and marriage.