some thoughts on marriage

My sweet friend Erin just posted a blog asking a question about "the one" that jogged my memory about a few thoughts I had about marriage. Last night I was thinking about Christ and the church and how marriage is supposed to teach me about that. You know, that is a really precious idea if you can get you mind around it, the fact that God gives us something to be able to understand the bigness and intricacy in a very real and tangible way of the relationship that he has with his people, the Church. So in Ephesians 5, it talks about how the husband is like Jesus and the wife is like the church.

This was the passage that Pastor Sinclair read in our wedding service and he asked the question, "How can a Holy God wed himself to such an un-holy people?" And when I think about marriage, I think about things like "double bouncing" and the like... being equally yoked and so forth. The Bible commands this. And to me, that is a big idea. To "find" someone who is this "perfect" or "near perfect" or "more perfect than the other people" person doesn't seem to me to be the way to think about it. Well, I'll tell you what, God didn't. He did not wed himself to a Church that was holy and blameless like himself. If he only cared to "marry" someone just like himself, God would have stayed "single" forever. So how did he do it? Jesus. Now, this is not the Sunday school version of that answer, but I do think it is applicable in how He loved us, the rotten group that we are, as well as how we can love another sinner all of our days. Jesus. Now, i am not saying go out and find the rottenest person you can and marry them, the Bible sets up a fence- they must be a believer- but within that fence, I, personally, do not think there is a "right" or a "wrong". I just see no scripture backing it up.

Here's the thought I had last night: Have you ever seen those cartoons or a tv show where there is a little guy who is standing there in a confrontation with someone who is a little bigger than them? Then all of a sudden, from behind the little guy, there comes a HUGE guy, but the little guy doesn't seen him, because he's behind him? But the middle sized guy DOES see him and realizes what he's up against and backs down because he fears the big guy?

Ok, that was an interesting way to tell that idea, but it was just a blurp of an idea anyway, the point is:

in trusting that the all Sovereign God who placed me at this moment in all of history gave me the family that he did in the place in the world that he did (all of which i had Zero control) and then led me along and along throughout life so that when i look back down my life road I see that it was Him pursuing me the whole time, not the other way around- He's Big. He's real Big. and I can trust my life to Him. I can trust that my husband, who is a sinner entrusted to lead me, is like the little guy. When I look at him, I see him, yes, but I see something much bigger than him, I see Jesus standing behind him, leading and guiding him. And why? Because he is in the fence. He is a believer and so no matter what, there is more to him than meets the eye.

To me, it's a matter of the big picture. I have been and am being sactified through my marriage because I have to trust that the God who is God over mine and my husbands life is bigger than any mistake or wrong turn or sin or whatever that either of us could make. I can trust my husband with our finances, my growth, our service to the world, whatever it may be, because as his wife, I am standing there looking at him and what do I see, I don't see a man standing alone I see the one behind him. I see my God who gave himself up for me.. who traded his perfect life for my sinful one that He may wed Himself to me.. an imperfect sinner who at the time didn't care one thing about Him. When I see what Jesus has done for me.. how he loved me, it enables me to love Him back so Big. But more than that, it enables me to love the dirty, sinful people in this world. Including the one to which I was wed. I am learning to be like Jesus because I am learning to trust the redeeming work of God in His marriage with the Church and in my own marriage.

I think there is "the one." And you know he/she is "the one" when you turn around and face the church and the pastor says, "I now pronouce you man and wife." Regardless of what has led up to that point, AT that point, he/she is "the one" and things could go any sort of up or down after that, but just like walking along the path of life, where God shines a flashlight at your feet and shows you just a step at a time, then you stop and turn around and see that he led you on each turn and bend. God didn't pick us because we are perfect. He didn't even pick us because we had some really good qualities. He picked us because we are dressed in Jesus. We have HIS righteousness on us- and when the Father looks at us, He sees Jesus's perfection. I can't help but think that on the day that we meet the father and he is giving out crowns, that there won't be a woman who receives a a beautiful crown for living her life becoming more like Jesus sumbitting to a husband who was not like him- does that mean she didn't marry "the one?" Forever she will live and love and know so intimately her precious redeemer, at the price of a life built on faith, not sight of Him- I don't think she would want it differently for eternity, and if you asked Him did she do the right thing, he may say yes or he may say no, but the best part is, HE did the right thing. He specializes in broken vases.