A Marriage Partner

Making marriage work is like running a farm. You have to start all over again each morning.  Author Unknown

I was thinking this morning about marriage.  Choosing a person to spend your life with is a huge responsibility.  One of the reasons this is true is because we have so many opportunities to choose the wrong one.  The thing is God allows us to make the choice.  

When I look back on the people I dated I was not thinking about what they believed or even if they believed in God.  It was all about attraction.  It took me many years to find the right person and I thank God every day for Jerry.  I was doing a poor job of finding Mr. Right and I went through a whole lot of Mr. Wrongs. 

Marriage is an interesting thing.  God’s intention was for us to become one, but too many times we try to keep the two separate. We want the companionship of marriage but not the oneness.  Society teaches us that we need to be independent and able to make it on our own, yet God created in us a need for companionship.  Being independent and wanting companionship are kind of counterproductive. 

If we look at marriage from a farming perspective, you don’t walk out the back door throw the seeds in the air and hope the seed will fall on fertile soil and grow. It takes preparation.  God gives us guidance on how we should go about selecting a life partner.  He wants us to have the best opportunity to succeed because this is one of the most critical choices we will make in our lifetime.  If marriage weren’t so important God would not have used marriage to describe Christ and the Church.

One of the most important things God teaches is that if we are a Christian we should not marry an unbeliever.  Why?  Because how can two opposing forces become one.  It is twice as difficult to become one if you are constantly in a battle with someone who doesn’t believe in God.  When trials come in your life it is much easier to stand united as one than it is to face it alone and the person you choose can make the difference between success and failure.  Choose wisely. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I was guilty of making dating choices based on attraction instead of making a conscious choice to build a relationship based on spiritual beliefs and values.  You blessed me with Jerry when many times in my life I came close to making the biggest mistake of my life.  Thank you for having mercy on me and bringing me someone who believes in You as I do.      

Scripture: Marriage—Christ and the Church

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.  For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.  “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.  Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.  Ephesians 5:22-33