One week from now, I’m marrying the sweetest young lady I’ve ever known. It’s the second most important decision of my life, and after getting to know this amazing woman over the last few years, I must say that I have no doubts about whether or not I’m making the right choice. Here are a few of my thoughts.
- One week from now, the sin I fight against inside of me will have a magnifying glass put over it by the constant closeness of another, and yet one week from now, God’s process of sanctification for his children will give my wife and I the opportunity to begin dealing with deeper underlying problems that we never knew God wanted us to confront in our own lives. As Rick Holland describes marriage, it’s “an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person.”
- One week from now, I’ll be financially responsible for someone. Yes, there will be tension, but it’s how I deal with my own selfish pride in that moment that counts.
- One week from now, I’ll finalize my full commitment to her alone, in the form of a vow before God, witnessed by friends and family.
- One week from now, I will be bound to reject the temptations of in any way pursuing other women, appearing to do so, or even accepting the advances of any other woman, for the sake of Karen knowing she is the only one that matters to me. Call this a positive bias in her favor or a discrimination against the pursuit of all others if you will.
- One week from now, there will still be just as many, if not more people watching to see how things turn out for the two of us, or as Stuart Scott put it in The Exemplary Husband, “We need to remember that we already are some sort of example to others. The question is, what kind?”
- One week from now, I will be committed to her safety, to the point where I will not be tolerant of that which harms her. This intolerance will apply to physical threats, emotional dangers, spiritual misguidance, or anything that threatens to destroy my relationship with her.
- One week from now, the two of us are committing to a first-year ban on the habit of the passive entertainment of television-show series that we’d rather not even give the chance to distance us from getting to know each other. We’ll revisit the need for this voluntary ban after we’ve had more time to analyze it’s potential benefits.
- One week from now, I’m not going to stop giving her flowers or chocolate! (And we’ll still be going out on dates).
- One week from now, we’ll be able to look back on our convictions about why we made the choices we did, and the relationship will become all that much more valuable to both of us as we reflect on the purposeful and sometimes temporarily painful discipline it took to faithfully wait for each other, despite the constant temptations that at any point could have overtaken our resolve if it weren’t for the daily grace of God. 1 Corinthians 10:13: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”
- One week from now, the excuse that “I don’t know if we’re compatible” will be as convincing in my mind as the rhetoric of a four year old telling his mom he doesn’t want to take a nap, as Karen and I discover that OF COURSE we’re not naturally “compatible” in popular culture’s expression, because only God’s grace can truly walk us through, rather than around, the inevitable challenges we will face in living with each other. (thanks Paul Tripp for the idea behind my analogy!)
- One week from now, all the advice we’ve received from the hours of counseling sessions, the overview books, and the DVD segments, not to mention the great role models of our parents and close friends, will become more valuable resources that we look back on to help guide us through miscommunications and disagreements that will arise from the dark sin we all have inside of us as part of fallen humanity that can only look to God for true hope.
- Lastly, a year from now, I’ll probably look back on this list and laugh a little, thinking of all the other things that I had yet to learn about marriage, about my relationship with Karen, and most importantly about God, since that determines our perspectives on everything else in life.
.
Rock rock on!!!