When I laid my head on my pillow last night this thought came into my mind that I had never thought about before. You are fighting the wrong enemy. I immediately thought about the war that has been waged for marriage in our country. The millions of dollars we have have poured into that fight. Good people from both sides of the isle, from the far right to the far left and everyone in between. Millions and millions of dollars. Not only that but enormous amounts of time has been given to the fight for marriage debating whether it is between one women and one man or can the same sex be legally married.
What I feel God showed me last night is this, we have all have been fighting this fight the wrong way, trying to do it the easy way. Its so easy to give a 100 bucks, even a 1000 dollars toward a cause, so easy to give precious time to something you believe in, when its your passion. On the other hand it is so hard to do the work, the real work it takes to stay married.
While all of us are battling back and forth regarding the Institute of Marriage, real live marriages are being taken out methodically one by one. You may think your safe but you aren’t. Divorce came and knocked on our front door it can just as easily knock on yours, your children, or grandchildren someday. All of us have seen people we would have never have dreamed divorce get divorced. This is happening to pastors, missionaries, educated and non-educated, young and old, rich and poor. It has become normal and it is slowly dumbing us down.
I know this grieves God, really grieves Him and makes the devil laugh super hard.
Gods Word says that obedience is better than sacrifice. In other words it is easier, much easier to sacrifice time, energy, and money as long as it is for something we are choosing or deem important and lets face it sometimes our spouse doesn’t make the important category, or even more frustrating we don’t make our spouses important category.
So what am I saying? Stop voting, stop giving to these causes that are dear to our hearts. Of course not. Do you know that God made you with the ability to think for yourself and reason for yourself. That is why if you want him in your life you have to invite Him. Do you also know that when He walked on this earth He also went against the flow, in other words, He gets it. We are not robots and that was His idea. But, what I am suggesting is this as you pursue your passions, and pursue what you know in your heart you are to do, whatever it is, whether its far far to the right or far far to the left or somewhere in the middle, don’t forget about what is the most important thing and that is Love. The Love that I wrote about yesterday. Love in your marriage not love in the Institute of Marriage or anything else.
I Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
So we pray for ever household in America. Every family and every marriage. Every single marriage. Jewish Households, Muslim households, every Baptist household, Christian, Agnostic, Atheist, Presbyterian, and Jehovah Witness and the Mormons, every Catholic family and Non-denominational family and families that don’t have a church. Every married couple to the right and to the left. We say Lord rescue us from ourselves, from our selfishness, and mostly our fears and our inability to see what is really the problem, that we as individuals are the problem. Give us new eyes to see, new ears to hear, hearts that practice true love, and minds that know how to keep our priorities strait.
Help us bring the changes that are necessary. Your Word says that humility is a necessary ingredient in fixing our country, so help us Lord. Forgive us for putting all our efforts in what we believe is the Institute of Marriage and not focusing on the most important thing which is Love in Marriage. Help us mostly when we are at home, when we are sitting at the dinner table, help us get to the dinner table, help us when our spouse is having a bad day, when we feel taken advantage of, cause were going to, when we see others we would rather be married too, cause thats going to happen too. Help us refuse to give up, refuse to feel sorry for ourselves, and refuse to buy in the lie that says we deserve better. Help us see that love, true love makes everything better.
I Corinthians 13:4-13
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.