A Covenant, Not a Contract

-
Marriage is a covenant, not a contract. There is a big difference. God made a blood covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 by cutting five animals in two and laying their carcasses on both sides of a path, with God “walking through” these body parts. This represents the absolutely binding nature of a covenant, for it says that “If I ever violate this covenant, may I be torn in two just like these animals.”
Have you thought of your marriage covenant in that way?
Don’t ever give up on your marriage, no matter what comes your way. When friction festers into fights, new “oil” is needed to relubricate the relationship. When romance disappears into a dull fog of mundane sameness, fresh oxygen is needed to fan the cooling embers into sparks that will rekindle the glowing flames of love. When chronic financial distress threatens the emotional equilibrium of the home; or when dysfunctions and compulsions surface like white caps in the bay to rock the family boat; or when in-law interference, tangled expectations, health crises or other predictable issues persist as huge problems that won’t go away, biblical words of help and encouragement are needed to revive the marriage out of the emergency room and carry it gently into rehabilitative therapy. Whether it’s the hot flare-ups of polarization or the long dry dredges of boredom and disillusionment, decide now that you will fight what infects the intimacy of your marriage relationship.
Keep your vows. Never give up. God will reward your faithfulness.
—Dale Johnsen

Popular posts from this blog

The Spiritual Skeleton

-
An old fable tells of a man cursed with the power of seeing other human beings, not in the beauty of flesh and blood, but as skeletons gaunt and grisly. Some saints seem to have taken upon themselves this curse. Do you feel that you are the only one who is right with the Lord—that everybody else is a spiritual skeleton because he is not of the same denominational stripe or has not the same scruples of conscience as you? Take him or her into your circle of believers as Paul did, as long as they are calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Read more

Can’t Dispute Facts

-
What does the criticism of others do to our inner self? Take the case of Col. George Washington Goethals. While contending with the manifold problems of geography and climate in the building of the Panama Canal, he had to endure the carping criticism of countless busybodies back home who freely predicted he would never complete his task. But he pressed steadily forward in his work and said nothing. “Aren’t you going to answer your critics?” a subordinate inquired. “In time,” Goethals replied. “How?” The great engineer smiled. “With the canal,” he said.
Read more