Marriage Musing

I was thinking a little bit earlier today about how much I love my wife. It occurred to me that I really love everything about her, from her very best qualities all the way to her outstanding stubbornness. From her faithfulness and dependability to her tendency to be pretty demanding with me. From her exceptional baking and above average cooking to her occasional absentmindedness. I love her emotionally, intellectually, physically, and any other potential area that you might think of. Every bit of her goes into making her who she is. Even when I get upset with her about something, I wouldn't have her to be someone other than who she is. Besides, she tolerates me, and that alone should tell you what a remarkable lady she is. The only change I would be interested in for her is the same I would wish for any Christian, and that is Spiritual growth (Philippians 1:6 "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:").

As I thought more about this it occurred to me that this is right. This is how it should be. Ephesians 5:25 (NKJV) says: "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her," and then goes on to talk about bringing His bride (the Church) to perfection, but after the fact, not loving because of the perfection that He will ultimately bring us to, but loving us now in spite of our imperfections. As I thought about this, the part that really struck me was the part about loving my wife the way Christ loved(s) the Church, in spite of all of our imperfections and problems, He loved us so much that he suffered one of the most horrific deaths imaginable to redeem us from eternal damnation, and instead bring us into eternal Glorification. Speaking for Husbands, we are being commanded to love our wives completely, not only to be willing to sacrifice for her, even to the point of laying down our lives, but to love her completely and unconditionally.

Clearly we, being humans ourselves, are not capable of loving as perfectly as Jesus Christ loves us, but that is the goal, that is the measure. In today's culture we tend to spend a lot of our time looking for things that we could use to get out of a marriage if we decided we wanted to, but this isn't the picture that Jesus paints for us, in John 6:37 He says, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Or in the ESV, "whoever comes to me I will never cast out." This is that unconditional love, remember that whenever we sin, we are being unfaithful to Jesus, basically, we are cheating, having an affair, betraying Him, but even for all of that, he will never cast us out, he will never Divorce His Church, that's how much he loves us. That's how much we are to love our wives. Not stubborn commitment, not resigning oneself to stick with it because it's the right thing to do, but a choice to love, because that is the model that Jesus Christ has set for us to follow.

I'm not claiming to have all of this down pat. I've been married now for almost 10 years, and I really wish that I had known all of this 10 years ago, I should like to think that I would have been much less of a jerk over these years.

Again, that doesn't mean that we don't see the imperfections, after all, if you're in love with some puffed up false image, then clearly you would not be loving according to Christ's model. He sees us clearly as we are, and yet loves us, so it's quite alright for us to see and acknowledge the imperfections in our wives, this just means that we are in love with the true woman, and not a false image. I would think that this is part of loving our wives as Christ loved the Church.

Don't wait for her to be perfect, just love her, every day.