Either love enters in and pride begins to break down, or pride remains intact and love never truly enters. But if love never truly enters into a heart due to it already being filled with pride, and thus incapable of receiving or rendering love... then what are the couples in question rendering to each other?
What the average Christian couple calls love may not be love at all. We may be mistaking love for what makes us feel good. A seductive amalgamation of the gratification of pride, the satisfaction of lusts, and consensual servitude. Beloved, there is no such thing as love at first sight. This begins to be revealed in time as the Lord will allow certain storms to arise within all relationships. Love will be required to endure these storms... and it is the love of Jesus revealed by the Holy Spirit dwelling within, that will carry through these storms without ship wreck. The love of God is the rock upon which a couple may rest in confidence, and not be swept away.
For example, I worked part-time at a chain restaurant years ago. One summer my supervisor (whom I was friends with) had made plans to take a long overdue beach vacation. I remember how she was so excited that she couldn't stop talking about it. As soon as her shift was over she and her family (husband and daughter) would hit the road. But a storm arose in the form of two employees not showing up for their shifts. One called in the hour my supervisor was supposed to leave, and I believe the other just quit. There wasn't any one else she could call to fill in for them, so guess who had to stay and work overtime. I would occasionally pass the closed door of the little office where she was calling her husband from. It wasn't long after she made the call that I passed by again. I just happened to see through the window of the door as I passed that she was crying with her head down on the desk. One of her friends stood by with a hand on her shoulder. She usually held up pretty good under stress... I had never seen her cry like that before. Later that day, I found out that when she told her husband the bad news, he lost it... raised his voice at her in anger and absolutely cursed her out. Apparently this was something that the two of them had been planning for a while. As far as I know, their vacation wasn't completely ruined, but they were going to be several hours off schedule.
Regardless of that, I didn't see anything that remotely resembled love in the way that her husband responded. I don't know if they were professing believers or not. I never got close enough to my supervisor to bring up the subject. But it would not surprise me at all if they were. Shortly after I left that job I found her on Facebook and sent her a friend request which she denied. It was weeks later that I ran into her by chance at a gas station across from the restaurant. She called over to me, and we had a quick and pleasant exchange as we inquired about each other's families. She then proceeded to explain her rejection of my friend request on Facebook. Evidently she had no choice in the matter as her husband has forbid her from having male Facebook friends. I thought that kind of strange but assured her that there were no hard feelings. So we parted ways...
Continual humility, forgiveness, sacrifice, long-suffering, meekness, gentleness, temperance...
When the storms arrive most couples seek shelter in the sharing of these attributes. Sadly, the majority are met with crushing disappointment, as they are forced to acknowledge time after time that the attributes sought are no where to be found. That's because those attributes are embedded in the love of God, and that love was never there to begin with. So the couples in question endure ship wreck, after ship wreck, after ship wreck... until finally there is a sudden storm so terrible that one or both decide they've had enough and they want to abandon ship. And though many of these couples may spend years crying to the Lord for their marriage, the Lord will not hear them. The reason being that they have never truly repented and believed the Gospel. They are carnal, lost, church-goers. And the only thing the Lord will suffer Himself to hear from the lost is a cry of repentance unto salvation. That must come first and then the Lord will hear. Then you can expect to see changes happen. But you must understand, the changes that take place will not begin with your spouse... they will begin with you.
TO BE CONCLUDED...
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