Sunday, January 26, 2014

Chapter 1: “The Greatest Challenge in the World: A Call To Holiness More Than Happiness”



Here is a simple question: Why did you choose to get married? Before reading chapter one I thought I had all the answers. It wasn’t until I read chapter one that I realized that I was totally wrong. I admit that I made mistakes in my life. I have not lived up to what God has expected of me or followed the proper view on marriage at all. You see, I am working on my third marriage. The first, I was blinded by what I thought was love. How wrong was I there! And I learned a valuable lesson. The second was a rebound and should have never been a marriage to begin with. We both had different goals for our lives. She wanted to focus on her career and I do not find fault in that at all. I wanted a family and she was not interested in that either. There was one common factor in both of these marriages. Neither marriage had any sense of spiritual guidance once so ever. It wasn’t until I met Catherine that I started to get a sense of Christianity. Even then, I was still testing the waters. I did not grow up in a Christian home or at the least we weren’t involved in church or pray. What I do know is that I found someone that I really liked and if I wanted to continue this relationship, I also had to start a new chapter in my life. This one had to include God. Catherine and I have been married 6 years know and there have been many struggles along the way. The one thing that we have made sure of for a fact is that God is foremost important in our family’s life and that we place glory to Him through our marriage.

Some in our society have a wrong interpretation of marriage and some of this comes from what is shown on television. I will not name any shows that give this poor view and make it a point to avoid having that as part of our daily life. This is NOT what God wants us to view in the way of marriage. It wasn’t until reading this first chapter that I realized that I need to get on board with the biblical view of marriage. What set of values do we want for our children to view on marriage? Do we want them to feel as if relationships are a go with the flow and date whomever we want at the moment and if our marriage fails move on to someone else until we find something that works? In my own view, no way! As I did with reading Resolution for Men, I plan to break some chains when it comes to the wrong view on marriage. Catherine and I may not have gotten in right with our initial marriages to other people and we cannot change what happened. We can seek forgiveness of God and seek to make this marriage show how much we intend to honor God. If we can achieve half of that goal, we will set a better example for our children.

Ephesians 5: 25 – 27 says “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

If I can follow half Jesus Christ’s example of loving my wife as much as He love the church, I might succeed. My goal is to love my wife as much as I can and set the best example I can for our children when if come to marriage. Hopefully they can learn from our mistakes and build a relationship with God first.

Romans 8:28 says “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” 

It took my meeting Catherine to realize that He has a plan for me and I need trust and let Him guide me through this marriage with the end goal to glorify Him.

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