Real Love

It saddens me to read about new cultural norms of young adults choosing to delay or even reject marriage with the notion that they can engage in satisfying relationships outside the marital covenant. Where I live more than 1/2 of all babies are born to single parents. The evidence that these children are more likely to grow up in poverty and without the nurturing of both parents or know the stability that marriage brings to the next generation. What a tragic statement about the world we live in. 

It saddens me that these young adults will never know true love. The kind of love  that lasts a lifetime. True, my generation may have had a shot at it and then abandoned marriages when they got tough, but these young one really don't have a shot at all. 

God ordained the union of a man and a woman telling us that the two become one. When a person gives their body to another, they unite in more than just a physical way. The real joy in this union is the unity that it brings to relationship. You give a piece of who you are. Each time partners change a piece goes away with the prior lover until there is nothing left but the physical. Any surprise that men are now referred to as "boy-toys" and women have all types of demeaning references applied?  People are reduced to objects with no lasting value. 

Marriage is tough in most cases. It is the love that is tested. In marriage you cannot just walk away from your partner when they are out of favor or have treated you unkindly. It is where you make a choice to cling to your partner and work for their best. You choose in Christian marriage to continue to invest, even double down when times are hard and you don't see a great outcome, because you trust that God can affect an outcome for His glory even beyond what you can see. 

In marriage we learn how to forgive offenses that we inevitably receive (and commit). In marriage we learn to be patient when we don't get our way. We learn to be kind toward someone other than ourselves. We hold the other high and work to help them become all they dream. In marriage we don't harm the other with demeaning words but work to build the other up. Marriage is where we learn to noble character qualities and have those qualities tested before we go out into the world. 

In marriage there is great security. A haven at the end of a frustrating day where your partner cares about you. A comfort to know that you have an ally in the midst of a world with so much strife and evil. Even on the days when you are unlovely, there is someone who will not leave your side. There is someone who will encourage you to think about the lovely, the pure, the noble things of life. Someone who cares enough not to allow you to wallow in negativity but will redirect your thoughts and allow you to draw from their strength when you are weak. 

In marriage, you are not alone. You no longer live for just yourself but you are a unit that only functions as you intertwine your thoughts and life choices. Their is no option of going it alone. You are one. To separate would be to take your soul and tear it in a way that can no longer be repaired. Every separation is a blow. Is it any wonder that those outside of marriage see relationships so negatively that they refuse to commit to another?

I do not subscribe to the philosophies of those who say that they can be in a commuted union outside of marriage. The ultimate commitment is to go before God and witnesses to pledge yourself for life to another and then honor that commitment throughout the remainder of your days. To abandon your way and pledge yourself to the common good. 

My heart aches for my friends who think they are in a loving relationship outside marriage. They may know physical intimacy and they may know the joy of common interests but they do not know the satisfaction that comes with a love that is a lifelong commitment and has weathered the tests that would seek to break that love, knowing that by holding that relationship high they could overcome the tests and see what heights there are to love. 

Our Lord gave us the example of love that we live out in marriage. While we were still sinners (rebellious and hostile toward him) he gave his life and bore those sins in himself so that we could know fellowship with the Father and have the hope of eternity in Heaven. Fellowship with the Father and eternity in Heaven is the ultimate goal of marriage. To help your spouse grow in their faith and knowledge of Christ so they can be victors in life. They can have the assurance of Heaven and peace in the midst of their storms on earth. 

There are people who give up on their spouses before they see this goal achieved. They lose faith in their partner. As long as our spouse has breath there is hope. God has not exhausted hope for any individual here. We should not either. If we are married to a wayward spouse or are frustrated by differences in purpose, God has not given up and we their spouses have been uniquely sent to them for such a time as this. We are given to pray for them, because who will of we don't? We are given to encourage them to take a step if faith and trust in the promises of God. We are given to be Jesus for them and to lay down even our lives so that they can have the hope of Heaven and know true love while here on earth. 

Marriage is our best reflection of godly love. To embrace our mate with all their faults and see the potential that God sees in them and work for their good. There is no other relationship that can compete for that level if deep intimacy. We all long to be loved deeply and at a soul level, not just for what we can give to the other. That love is found in marriage. 

Marriage Differences - part 7

I started out my relationship with conflict in my marriage that seemed to largely play out as conflict with finances, but our larger issues were spiritual. Not just the need for salvation, but God needed to develop His character within me. It was I who was woefully lacking. It was for my good that God gave me this conflict. Not to harm me, but to redirect me. 

While we are both hard driven, strong willed people we are very different personalities. I am the saver in our marriage. He is the spender. I plan things out while he is able to take a trip and just head "west". He is much more affectionate and spontaneous than I am. I am more guarded and introspective. He is the life of the party while I am the "Martha" in the kitchen working the details behind the scenes. 

God gave me the ability to appreciate the differences that my husband brings. It isn't about one person having their way at the expense of the other, but in appreciating the talents that he brings and dedicating myself to help him become all that he can be. I know that the love of a good woman cannot do it all for him, but the love of a good God has everything he could ever desire. My hope is that I can grow in grace so much that I can be Christ to this man I love. To give him what Christ gave me - hope and a future. 

Marriage Differences - part 6

As I prayed for more grace and a deeper and greater love for my husband, I saw God's love in new perspective. His love is so much more than affection. It is a love that sees great offenses and extends itself anyway. I saw my sin and God's grace toward me much more personally and I did more introspection about the kind of lover I was toward God and the kind of lover I was toward my husband. I had failed in both relationships. God asked for my obedience and I was a rebel through and through. Even when I could identify bad attitudes, it didn't stop me from executing them. I could say with Paul, "what a wretched person I am". (Rom 7:24). 

Love is patient. (1 Cor. 13)

At our marriage ceremony, Rev. Ary quoted these verses. They sounded all pious and well placed for the covenant taking place, but it was not a good descriptor of my character. I was anything but patient. I was hard driven, motivated to do and be something. We each entered marriage, I believe out of selfish desire. We looked for marriage to give us stability for the uncertainty of our future. Having lived in a home with the troubled marriage of my parents, I didn't have huge expectations except that I would not repeat their mistakes and by sheer will would make this marriage last. Patience did not describe me; neither did kind, humble, long suffering, forgiving, and all the other aspects of love listed in scripture. God would develop those within me one by one. I was all wrong for marriage. I didn't have what it took, but God saw fit to place me with a man who was just as hard driven and able to confront my strong will at every turn. Any other man would have given up on me and let me go my strong headed way. God didn't give up on me and neither did my husband. 

The drive of emotion. So many of us enter into marriage with great affection and devotion to our mates. So it was with me. I was committed to marriage and believed the differences we had would work themselves out in marriage and that we would become closer and closer. I wanted closeness with my husband. I wanted real intimacy. I wanted more. As I grew in understanding of my husband, there are moments of deep intimacy, but more often than not there is the daily routines that keep us passing each other wondering who is this stranger that lives with me?  I had to dig deeper to find my reason for marriage. When I listened to a Dr. Dobson program he shared the commitment of his parents in marriage. They made a choice that no matter what came they would remain committed to the other. They would place the needs of the other high and pledge their lives to the other's good. 

This idea that love is more than emotion, it is a choice struck me deeply. Could I, would I hold my husbands needs high. Would I work for his good. Would I give more than what the world gives to him?  Would I be faithful in prayer, service and devotion for him?  Would I honor his leadership of our home even when I felt that the choices were unwise?  Would I allow my way to be secondary to his?  Would I continue to point him to righteousness and never give up?  Would I be willing to become a sweet and gentle personality in my home. If I were to ever become sweet and gentle, it would have to be a work of God. It was definitely not natural to me. I have always been a fighter, a scrapper, defending myself at every turn. Could I stop striving long enough to let God have His way in my life?  

Marriage Differences part 5

Not really knowing where my journey would take me, I set out to seek God's will and to return to serving my Lord whole-heartedly. God began to convict and prune this servant getting rid of some of the ugly dross that had developed in me. 

I came to see that strife between me and my husband and later between me and God when I didn't see immediate answers to prayer I looked for had left me bitter. The hurt, anger and resentment became a regular part of my days. I had to look at my condition and stop making excuses. I needed to call it what God calls it-- sin. That was hard to admit. After all the harsh words that had been spoken after all the disappointment, I felt entitled to my bitterness. God called me to let it go. It wasn't of Him and gave poor witness to those around me of my relationship with God. 

I had to also grapple with some fundamentals of salvation. No one earns it - it is a gift of grace. No one is righteous and no one seeks after God. No one can come to the Father unless God first does a work in our lives. We were utterly dead in sin when God chose to quicken us. We didn't choose on our own. We chose God because we were chosen. God wants that everyone come into a knowledge of Him. Jesus' payment on the cross was all sufficient for everyone. I was completely unworthy to be accepted by my Father in Heaven. I was not good. It was not right choices or good behavior that gained me status but only the work of Jesus. 

I had to see my husband the way God saw Him. If things were as utterly hopeless as I once imagined, then there would be no reason for God to keep us together. God had not given up on my husband and neither would I. I began to pray that God would give me HIS love for my husband and grow me in grace. 

GRACE - I needed to understand the grace of God. It is given only in cases without any merit at all. It is a gift and never earned. If we are kindly only to those who treat us with respect and kindness we are not demonstrating grace but offering payment through kind responses. Grace means that while you and I were still sinners, Christ died for us. In order for me to demonstrate grace it would require that I offer myself in humble service even if I was treated like a servant. Grace is a demonstration of true love which lays itself down for another without regard for merit or response. Because I was not the only bitter person in our marriage, but my husband had not yet experienced fellowship with The Lord. He had to rely on his own resources, but I had power from above.   

Marriage Differences part 4

The peace that can be derived from self help is superficial. Even in my return to church, the personal love and devotion I had as a teen for The Lord did not return as deep as in my earlier years.There was a comfort and a sense of rightness, but it was outward.  I longed for answers to resolve the conflict of my soul and to revive my marriage. 

Larry Burkett said that our management of money was an outward indicator of our true spiritual condition. I began to see  that my husband was relying on "Stuff" and his natural talents to provide for him. God was distant and not personal. When I was able to consider my husband's need for a relationship with The Lord, my focus changed. 

I began praying for him in earnest and continue to this day to ask The Lord to soften his heart toward the spiritual, convict his heart of sin, open his eyes to see salvation and release him from this bondage of materialism in his life. By this point, he had several cars and a motorcycle. His life was in the garage. With my return to developing my walk with The Lord, our lives seemed to have less in common and caused me to pray all the more. 

In my weakened spiritual state, I was in no condition to preach. I needed to learn and apply. Every lesson needed to take time to sink in. I needed to be reminded of who God is and the depths of his love. I had strayed and violated my relationship with God like the harlot that Hosea reclaimed, God had reclaimed my life, but I had a long way to go. I was humbled to see how much I had left my faith and failed to look to God to help me in my distress. 

Now I looked and prayed that God might suddenly work a miracle. Instant results. But that was not God's way for me. I was to first come face to face with my own need before I could minister to another. God placed me in a church and a Sunday School where people were seeking to know and apply God's word. My husband started to come with me as his contribution to compromise. 

I had much to learn about the love of God and how it is played out in the marriage relationship. My prayers for my husband made me more sensitive to his spiritual need and in turn The Lord developed a greater compassion for my husband. This was no longer a battle of wills but a fight for eternity playing out in the daily choices we made.   

Marriage Differences part 3

In the Navy, there really is no need to wish for change. It is always there around the corner. Three months at sea; three months home. Then gone again. When my husband was at sea, I did my best to live frugally and tuck away savings. When he was home, he would buy all the things he dreamed if while at sea and work out payment plans for the stuff purchased. He reasoned he had been deprived of life for months and had to make up for it while at home. I could manage the payments while he went back to sea. 

The breaks kept the marriage fresh. We were lonely and longing for each other when he returned, when the reality of the differences in philosophy reared their heads, it was time to return to sea. I continued to hold out hope that I could reason with him so that he too could see that house if cards being built ready to topple on the slightest change. 

I returned to college and resurrected my church attendance. I had to confront my own failures as a Christian. I had sunk far from my first love when I first vowed to serve The Lord. My issues in marriage had come down to my way and his way. Neither of us planned to budge. I started listening to a Christian radio station where I heard Larry Burkett for the first time. He wrote a number of books on money management and I ate them up like candy. He helped me to see and appreciate the differences between men and women and how the differences were to fulfill us, not to frustrate us. 

I fed on Christian self help books that I also shared with my husband. He seemed to find enjoyment from them as well. I started attending church and Bible study to help me keep my focus on God's hand in my life and not to create solutions of my own doing. We found a bit of peace for the journey and I was grateful.   

Marriage Differences part 2

Military life was a real change. We were taken from country living with family nearby to living in the city and all that comes with that life. We began with very little. The most valuable possession was the new car he purchased the week we were married. No longer would a sporty car do; he was married and that meant a sedan. 

Month to month we didn't know if we could make the rent. Gas had to wait until payday, sometimes meaning that a ride would need to be found to get to work. For several years of training, pay checks were meager and sometimes interrupted through administrative error. We lived moment by moment. Any extravagance would be funded by a friend or family member who was better off than we were. I had come from that kind of life, but for him it was a great sacrifice. 

When we finally landed our first real duty station, he was shipped out within a couple of days. In fact they were waiting for him to arrive. He borrowed enough money to rent a house, but no knowledge of whether we would be able to make the next rent payment. Creditors called throughout the day but I really didn't have the answers they wanted. Debt was a foreign concept to my growing years. I was very uneasy with our predicament. I didn't like engaging in these commitments that were so shaky. 

Later we bought a home using three months of advanced pay before shipping out. Again, no knowledge of how the next payment would be made. My discomfort led to conflict between us. I had not nurtured my relationship with my Lord nearly as much as I nurtured my marriage. But I had given all that I could and it just wasn't enough. In my mind it meant that someone else (my husband) should give more. 

I tried living by his rules thinking I was being a supportive wife and it wasn't working out. This was not what I had bought into. This was not the life I dreamed of as a girl.  God seemed so far out of the equation and I seemed to be the only one in our marriage who saw looming danger on the horizon. Something had to change.   

Marriage Differences part 1

Relationships have never been easy for me. As a teenager I had a few friends who were as geeky as me who embraced me. I say they embraced me because I certainly wasn't outgoing enough to bring someone into my circle. God organized my little circle of friends and even within this circle I guarded my deepest feelings. 

I remember praying one day feeling frustrated with family dysfunction and drama that God would bring someone into my life who was just interested in me, no manipulation and no demands. Shortly thereafter, some of my friends were organizing a double date. My best friend was to be set up with the nephew of another friend so she could take her beau out. My best friend declined, preferring to wait at home for the call that might just come through. And so I was selected as the substitute for a blind date to take place on Friday the 13th.  God at work to bring a shy but headstrong girl into a relationship with a boy. Later, I came to understand him as the answer to my prayer. 

This young man shared his thoughts about life. He was certainly more traveled and more experienced in life than I was. There were some clues along the way of some obsessive behavior, but I was oblivious since I was the latest obsession. He shared his belief that anyone should be able to do anything they wanted as long as it wasn't hurting someone else. I shared my desire to follow God and honor Him through my life. I didn't know that these two philosophies would conflict so greatly through the years. 

Even in dating years, it was apparent that his "stuff" was highly valued. His cars and all the add ons to trick them out were central to him. Washing and detailing the inside and out were all day affairs and done at least once a week. I remember opening a soda and on popping the lid some soda spit out inside his car. It was a crucial point in our relationship. I saw it a no big deal we will just wipe it away. He saw it as an intentional contamination of the pristine car he had just cleaned. Later after we were married about two months there was an accident. The bleach cap was not tightly secured and bleach leaked out over our clothes but also on the car seat where we had placed the laundry basket. I was fairly certain that was the end of our marriage. 

We were both accustomed to being masters of our destiny; calling our own shots. We were leaders and not followers, but we weren't always leading in the same direction. I liked that he knew his own mind until it came up against something I was passionate about. Will on will; like iron sharpening iron we went through our dating years each determined not to bend our wills to the other, but still finding each other captivating. As for me, in quiet moments I saw a young vulnerable man covering up insecurity by overcompensating. No one would  ever guess he had doubts because he would choose a direction and plunge headlong into it no matter where it ended. I suppose I did the same. My vulnerabilities were left to quiet moments in prayer. 

When during the course of our dating, my parents separated, I dropped out of college and really didn't know what was next for me, he offered to get an apartment for us. It wasn't how I envisioned our relationship going but I didn't see other options at the time. He was at a crossroads himself and began to explore the military as an option. 

He visited the recruiter who gave him some tests. He has always been very intelligent and did very well. They recommended him for the nuclear program and assured him he would make more money than he knew what to do with. It just seemed logical to him that we would get married so I could go with him. And so we did.    

Is Debt UnBiblical?

Americans by in large are active users of debt. When a desire or a need crops up for which we do not have cash, the credit card is a frequent "go-to" tool in our culture. Cars, furniture and electronics are given payment plans. Even our homes are mortgaged over very long periods of time. We Americans love our stuff and debt helps us abandon deferred gratification and enjoy the "good life" now. 

The amounts we currently owe in debts are staggering. Over $11 trillion in personal debt - almost 4 times the $2.7 US budget and approaching the $17 trillion of national debt. We are in deep. By the time we bail ourselves out and our nation, what will be left for impacting our world for Christ?  

So what does the Bible say:

Consider the story of the widow and the oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7. The dead man was a righteous fellow but had fallen into debt. As a result, the creditor was prepared to take the two children as slaves.  Proverbs 22:7 echoes this sentiment when it says, "just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender". In borrowing today we run the risk that we will not have sufficiency for the future and may become servants of another master. 

Debt is not forbidden in scripture, but is warned against and was a last resort for seeing oneself through a time of famine and want. 

The mark of plenty was to be that the people would lend to many nations and not borrow. (Deut 28:12). It demonstrates that God provides for his people so sufficiently that the unbelieving world would look to God through their lending. So what does debt say about us?

I believe that in the free use of credit, we have said some things about what we believe. We believe that God will continue to provide for us as he has in the past and that God will spare us from any time of want. It says we trust in our own abilities and don't need to look to God for our provision. It says that God was wrong in doling out provision to us. He didn't give us enough that we could have what we wanted or needed. 

In our free use if debt, we train ourselves away from dependence on God and hold our own estimations of our needs higher than God'sprovision. 

Indebtedness is indeed a curse to us. It steals money from our current monthly needs to pay for something in the past. It prevents us from saving for future needs and causes us to pay so much more for the things we use. Debt prevents us from answering God's call to follow him into ministry and missions because of our ties to the past. Debt prevents us from being generous givers to supply the needs of others and to find the work of the gospel. Debt keeps us from being lenders to unbelievers and so hinders our ability to witness to God's greatness. 

Our culture tells us there is good debt and bad debt but debt is so damagingfor families and for churches.  Debt merely drives up the prices of goods to keep us needing debt to afford to own a home or a car. Debt does not get us closer to God, but closer to the world. Debt allows us to live comfortably in the world and binds us to life here. 

We are called to be content with God's provision and to follow Him in witnessing of His greatness to the world. God is owner of all the world's wealth. The portion he supplies if insufficient should be provided through the hands of Gods people in love. 

In the New Testament church financial persecution of the believers was common. The churches from Paul's missionary journeys were collecting funds even sacrificing to supply the needs of the church in Jerusalem. That is God's provision in action.