Story by Michael T. Powers (Author)
I have been officiating a lot of weddings this summer and fall. When you are involved in youth ministry for 30 years, the weddings eventually catch up to you! As a videographer, I have videotaped hundreds of weddings and I have heard a lot of wedding messages given by ministers over the years. And I can tell you, that as a society we do a horrible job of preparing people for what marriage is truly like. Marriage is the toughest, most gut wrenching, and mentally exhausting thing you will ever experience in your entire life.
I wonder if any couple on their wedding day has even the slightest clue the amount of hard work that is ahead of them.
I wonder if any couple on their wedding day really understands the type of commitment that is necessary to make a marriage work for even a month, let alone a life time.
I wonder if any starry-eyed bride and groom truly understands the solemness of this ceremony and more importantly, how seriously God takes the vows that they make to each other.
Because of that, couples enter into marriage with false hopes, false dreams, and false expectations… and they become disillusioned, distant, and eventually divorced.
Society will tell you that it is what YOU get out of a marriage that counts. It will tell you that YOU deserve to be happy in life. And when you are no longer “happy” in your marriage it is time to end it.
If you went into your marriage with the preconceived notion that marriage was designed to make you happy, then chances are your marriage will not last. As Author Gary Thomas talks about in his book “Sacred Marriage”, God didn’t design marriage to make us happy. He says, “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”
Don’t get me wrong. There are moments of happiness, and more importantly, great joy in marriage. But true fulfillment is attained when we die to ourselves in loving others. Not when we set out to make ourselves happy.
The best thing that my beloved bride Kristi and I have ever learned in our 27 years of marriage was this simple truth.
Love is a decision, not a feeling.
Let me write that again. Love is a decision, not a feeling.
You and your spouse need to commit to waking up every morning and CHOOSING to love each other, even when the feelings might not be there. When you do that through some rough patches in your relationship, you will be amazed at how the “feelings” will follow.
Brides, as handsome and funny and loving as your husband may be, he will never complete you. He will never make you truly happy. He will never fulfill the deepest longings of your heart.
Grooms, as beautiful and charming and loving as your wife is, she will never complete you. She will never make you truly happy. She will never fulfill the deepest longings of your heart.
The truth is that you both were made for a love far deeper, far richer than any human relationship could ever offer. The void in the human heart is God-shaped, not spouse shaped.
You will both let each other down on a regular basis. Why, because we as human beings fall miserably short of being God. No human being can meet all of our needs. No human being deserves to live under that much pressure. No spouse can be “God” in your life.
But Jesus Christ can. And He does.
Jesus once said that no one has greater love than the one who will lay down his life for his friend. And then he proved it by giving up his life as a sacrifice to pay our sin debt. A debt we could never pay on our own. Find your meaning and purpose and your identity in Christ and not in each other.
When you focus on Christ and not your spouse meeting those deep needs in your life, you will be amazed at what that will do for your marriage.
I don’t know why I felt so strongly moved to post these words today. But it is my hope that someone out there needed to read this. That someone out there was thinking of throwing in the towel…
Don’t you dare give up and go back on your vows. Those vows made before your spouse, those witnesses and a Holy God.
Kristi and I struggle in our marriage from time to time, but we made a decision a long time ago that divorce was not an option.
I just want to encourage you and say, “IT IS WORTH IT!”
There is no more powerful force for God on this earth, than a husband and wife who are committed to Christ, committed to each other, and committed to raising Godly children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
That is why marriages come under such heavy attacks. Satan knows where the real threats are and he goes after marriages with howling fury.
Your marriage is worth fighting for. Never let your guard down. Fight for it every second of every day. Fight for it with every fiber of your being!
That is worth fighting for. Never let your guard down. Fight for it every second of every day. Fight for it with every fiber of your being!
From the book: “Heart Touchers” by Michael T. Powers
Copyright © 2015 by Michael T. Powers, All rights reserved
www.HeartTouchers.com
