By Scott Wetzel
"(Love) always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Cor 13:7
I’m at the age where I begin to see a lot of divorce in my age group, whether it be believers or unbelievers. It’s all over the place in the friends that I have. Almost every time it’s because of infidelity. There are not a lot of things more shocking than a friend admitting to you that they had an affair, especially when it’s a person you thought had more integrity than that.
The most shocking part of it all is that they generally make the same rationalization, “I just fell out of love.” It probably SHOULDN’T be shocking to me, honestly. Our everyday conversations are filled with the term “falling in love”. If we can fall in love, why can’t we go deeper and fall out of love with that person and in love with another? Falling is unintentional. To most people, love is an unintentional, random feeling. It is the increased heart rate, serotonin, libido that makes you want to be around that special someone. When that feeling is gone, obviously the love has left, right?
We’ve reduced love down to a simple emotion. Love is no longer an eternal gift to be given, but a fleeting tingle in our hearts (or loins) that makes all of our selfish desires turn to reality. Once those selfish desires are fulfilled we move on to the next selfish desire and the next and the next and the next. If our significant other can’t provide for our selfish desires, we begin to search for someone who can.
There will NEVER be a person that can fulfill all of your selfish desires.
YOU can’t even fulfill all of your selfish desires.
True love was defined by Jesus in John 15:13 when He told us that there is no greater love than a person sacrificing their life for another. That’s a big revelation after hearing about self preservation for multiple generations. Real love isn’t about self preservation at all. In fact, it’s about self cessation. We no longer focus internally, but instead we focus externally in order to better the one we love. We end our lives in order to extend the life of another. When we marry, we should essentially be saying, “my life doesn’t matter any more, but yours does.” When that’s reciprocated, the result is a singular entity rather than two opposing forces trying to work together.
We’ve lost that in marriage. We’ll go on mission trips, feed the poor locally, serve the church, but reduce our marriages to “falling in love”. Yes, it’s just a phrase, but it’s a destructive phrase. It’s silly to think that a quick stumble into a relationship would be eternal. All things of great eternal consequence need to be worked at, refined and ultimately, sacrificial. If Jesus relates the church to our marriages (or at least the way our marriages should be), it completely changes the dynamic of love, doesn’t it?
Real love is not about falling. It’s about rising.
"When we marry, we should essentially be saying, “my life doesn’t matter any more, but yours does.” When that’s reciprocated, the result is a singular entity rather than two opposing forces trying to work together."
ReplyDeletewell stated Scott. This is hardly a new topic, but a vital one none the less. I'm at the age where many of my friends are beginning this whole marriage thing, and I'm not. I sit and observe. I think I'm beginning to process the information, but it's a lot to go through. It saddens me that I find that most marriages I see look nothing like what I hope to be part of. The seem like the latter half of your statement at best. It breaks my heart.
This afternoon I was praying/pondering and came again to the thought, "there is great power in getting not only beyond oneself, but fixed on giving to another." It wasn't in the context of romance, but certainly applies. Thanks for this friend.
Mark Richcreek
You are at the age where your friends are marrying. Sadly, I'm at the age where my friends are divorcing. The world ought to be looking in at marriages (between Christians) as a beautiful exchange of servitude and sacrifice. They should also see the church the same way. Unfortunately, we're too focused on ourselves that we don't realize that the reason people are walking away from both is because we're failing in this example. I fail in this example all the time...but through the Holy Spirit, I'm getting there.
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