“That’s what’s so difficult about Jesus’ call to love others.  On one level, it’s easy to love God, because God doesn’t smell [like a homeless man].  God doesn’t have bad breath.  God doesn’t reward kindness with evil.  God doesn’t make berating comments.  Loving God is easy, in this sense.  But Jesus really let us have it when he attached our love for God with our love for other people.

In the marriage context, we absolutely have no excuse.  God lets us choose whom we’re going to love.  Because we get the choice and then find it difficult to carry out the love in practice, what grounds do we have to ever stop loving?  God doesn’t command us to get married; He offers it to us as an opportunity.  Once we enter the marriage relationship, we cannot love God  without loving our spouse as well… Yes, [your] spouse may be difficult to love at times, but that’s what marriage is for - to teach us how to love…Allow your marriage relationship to stretch your love and to enlarge your capacity fo love - to teach you to be a Christian.”

I recently read a book that I recommend to anyone who is married or who is thinking about getting married called “Sacred Marriage - What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us Happy? ” by Gary Thomas which I just quoted above.  Mr. Thomas’s perspective of marriage is more incredible than any I have ever heard before.

As he states in his book he views marriage as the greatest catalyst to becoming more Christ like.  In marriage you have to live very close to another human being and learn to love, respect, honor, and serve them no matter what their actions are toward you.  Those are the very principles that Christ came to this earth to exemplify.  Marriage is a lab in which you get to test it out for yourself.  And apart from these qualities you cannot truly love God.

I was given my copy of “Sacred Marriage” at my wedding shower from my aunt.  After getting married I was looking for insights into how I could be the best wife possible for my new husband so I picked the book up and started to read it.  I put it down as fast as I picked it up.

In the beginning Thomas described the infatuation stage of romance and how it fades.  He described the point of view held by many that getting married will be the thing that ultimately makes them happy and completes them, but that is a false assumption.  He wrote that even though it is hard to admit, spouses will at times feel hate for one another though they are dependent on each other.  The hate word was it for me.  I put the book down, went and talked it over with my new husband telling him that I did not agree with this man.  He didn’t know what he was talking about.  I could never hate the wonderful man  I married.

Four years into our marriage and two kids later I heard Gary Thomas on the radio promoting his new book and he mentioned “Sacred Marriage.”  Everything he said seemed right on point so I decided to go back and give the book another chance.  This time I read it all the way through in 3 days and have never agreed more with a book on marriage than this one.  Kind of funny, huh?!

I still don’t like to use the word hate, but I have been very angry and hurt by my husband.  Though extremely hard at times for me to accept, I know I have made my husband extremely angry and hurt at times too.   We have discovered for ourselves that our spouse cannot complete us and will fail us from time to time.  We now have to work harder than we use to keep romance alive due to responsibilities such as two children, finances, and the many other things that demand our attention.  The infatuation stage has passed, but I think we would both agree that the love we have for one another today is sweeter than anything we experienced in the beginning.

Marriage isn’t for everyone, and God  was gracious in not making it a requirement, but there is nothing else like it.  It is not for the weak at heart, but for those who are determined to learn to be more Christ-like.   Do you love God? Are letting your marriage teach you to be more Christ-like?  Are you striving to love, respect, honor and serve your spouse?

Sarah Brown

(Picture of Sarah and CJ Brown taken by Miguel Ramos)

One day many months ago, after Jay and Michelle were married they decided to accompany me and Tabitha in a double date consisting of dinner and a movie. I forget what the conversation was, or how we even talked about the subject, but all I remember is Jay saying “I’m the only one who will take out the garbage. I`m not letting Michelle`s pretty hands touch the stuff!”

Not only until recently did I truly understand: Women want to feel like they are looked after, and that`s what Jay was doing with those particular actions. My wife also wants me to take care of her. She has a very large mothering side, but she has a desire for me to take care of her and make her feel protected.

I realize now this is in the smallest of things. This includes walking on the car side of the sidewalk, opening doors for her, unlocking her side of the car first, doing the dishes, the garbage … and the list goes on. Don`t be mistaken … I`m not depended on to do these things. It`s not like I`m a slave at her every whim. She doesn`t abuse me this way. She has done dishes, and recycling, and vacuuming. But she likes it when I do it for her.

So, how can you take care of your significant other? Start with the little things … she will be grateful. It will make her feel loved, pursued, and cherished. Well worth the investment of your time.

Make your spouse feel loved deeply.
Make them feel desired infinitely.
Cherish each other intimately.

Aaron

If your marriage is full, it should never have to spill out.

NOTHING can guarantee a divorce-free marriage.  But a highly fulfilling, God-centred, others-centred, full-of-life marriage is a GREAT safeguard.

If you’re regularly having sex, who needs a mistress or another partner or a hooker?

If you’re working together to make your house a home, why would you go looking for an affair?

If you spend quality time together, then who needs that co-worker?

If you have fun together, travel together, play together, adventure together…why look for another playmate?

If you have a great community of friends, why would you try to start fresh?

If you were have great conversations with your spouse, why would you ‘just need someone to talk to?’

If you love your family and in-laws, why go after another set?

If you’re helping each other grow deeper in your relationship with Jesus, why would you want another spiritual partner?

What this might mean is that we need to start having sex more.  Helping out around the house more. Spending quality time together more. Traveling more.  Playing more.  Talking more.  Playing sports more.  Doing fun things more.  Going on adventures more. Spend more time with your family and your in-laws.  Spend more time with your friends.  Spend more time with Jesus together.

Here’s the main point- GET FILLED.  Be so fulfilled in your cord-of-three-strands marriage that you never turn away.

Do it for your marriage ya’ll.

Jay

Last week I was taking a shower, and thinking about Michelle dying someday and how that would be the most horrible, lonely experience I could ever face.  How I’d need to surround myself with community despite wanting to be in deep isolation.  How I’d have to learn how to cry and mourn and heal.  How I’d have to pick up the pieces and move on with work, relationships, ministry, and life.  I didn’t like the prospects much at all.  I got out of the shower and gave Michelle a huge hug and said, “I don’t want you to ever die.” But the truth is- someday she will.  Or I will.

Just Google or YouTube ‘tribute to my wife’…

That evening, she said something I don’t like very much: “It’s hard to think that, given enough time, either you will outlive your spouse or your spouse will outlive you.  Eventually, someone has to say goodbye.”

I got to thinking about the marriages I know.  Who will be widowed first?  How will it happen?  I know quite a few bad drivers.  How will the surviving member go on?  Then I began to wonder about who would ever recover.  Then I began to ask the hard questions…

Could you live without your spouse?  Or would you cease to live?  Would you be able to carry on?  Or would you kill yourself?  Could you survive the heartbreak of loss?  Or would it break you?

This might be hard for many of you to hear- if you couldn’t live without your spouse, then your spouse has become your god and you need to re-size God and re-position your spouse.

A spouse is a gift from God.  A spouse is a trust from God.  A spouse was created by God, and a spouse will return to God.  He or she is yours, but not really.  Your spouse is God’s.

My advice?  Let go now.  Say goodbye now. Give up now.  Surrender your marriage to Jesus.  Place your spouse back in God’s hands.  Put yourself back in God’s hands.  It’s the only place where you can always be together.

I’m still unpacking my notes from my mom’s message a few weeks ago at Reverb….one thing that really stuck out was a great word called ‘Choreplay.’ It’s the idea that serving around the house will rev up a women.  Maybe it’s true, but it has a dark side…the manipulation of servanthood.

I have heard SO MANY preachers, especially as certain unnamed men’s conferences, say something like, “if you do_________, then she’ll do _______.”  “If you just say this, then she’ll do that.”  “If you serve her like this, then you’re bound to get laid.” Everyone laughs and claps and elbows each other in the ribs.  It seriously pisses me off.

I don’t barter my services for sex.  I don’t expect my wife to have to work hard for me if she expects to be treated well.  We don’t serve our spouses in order to get laid (or to get a bigger chunk of the money to spend on crap we don’t need).  Serving has no agenda. Wait…serving has no SELFISH agenda.

We serve each other in order to help each other.  We serve each other as an expression of our love in action.  We serve each other to get closer to each other.  We serve each other to practice being like Jesus.  We serve each other in order to become one.

And maybe, just maybe, this intimacy might then spill over into the bedroom.