A Monumental Awakening
Have you ever had a quiet moment when all of a sudden an illumination of understanding comes that is so monumental it decisively reorients your understanding?
Early this morning while I was simply at rest and not mentally engaged in any particular thought, I had just such an experience. It didn’t come accompanied by a lightning bolt but rode in on a white fluffy cloud within a peaceful breeze. It had to be Father speaking because instead of a rebuke “to get your thinking straight,” it came beautifully wrapped in a package of love exactly when it was most needed. Like watching a beautiful flower opening to the sunlight, it seemed so gentle that it took a long moment before I understood its significance. In fact, hours later, as I write these words, I still strongly feel the deep emotions that it brought with it. And I realize that I am only beginning to sense its profound depth and understand its great significance.
This is the way it came to be. While separating from all other thoughts, I felt a pause – and these words entered my mind, “It is a privilege for you that I have given Esther to be your wife.” Then a quiet stillness came.
These words brought special significance for me as a father. The Father’s voice reminded me how I have responded for both of my daughters to a similar call in giving them to their spouses with the answer to: “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” I only wish, at those times that I knew I was standing in for someone much greater than I was – the Father who gives us the blessing of our spouse.
In a cursory reading of anything I have written, you will more than likely quickly deduce that there is a singular consistent thrust in nearly all I say about God’s design for Christian marriages. It can be reduced to two simple words: sacrificial love.
I now see that the foundation for such love, God’s kind of love, is that God Himself has given us the privilege for a time of having our spouse. Like all privileges, this relationship comes with responsibilities. Those responsibilities include His command and His trusting of us to love, nurture, and, unlike any other relationship on earth, to give our life of self for the betterment of our spouse. Remember those words: “for better or for worse… in sickness and in health” you vowed?
There will never be anything more important or more rewarding in our lives than fulfilling those responsibilities that come with the gift of our spouse. It is now with a healthy, fearful unsettling of my understanding, knowing He could have chosen someone else for my spouse, that I am now more motivated than ever before to do my best in this marriage.
Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
Proverbs 3:3, New International Version (NIV)
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
God’s blessings for you and yours,
Ted
NOTE: If you’d like to read more about this topic and the importance and practicality of sacrificial love in marriage, here are a couple of posts addressing that specifically.
