The best love in the world

I was compelled to write a new blog because of my rediculously long absence from Blogger.com since, well, July i think.  I've since been married, honeymooned, and away from my wife for the first time since 1 1/2 solid months together.  Times are changing, bodies are learning new sensations, and understanding and insight is expanding like never before.  

An entirely new relationship is mine to 'have and hold' now for the rest of my life, and i am also an addressee of the Bible which i have not been before.  All this is incidental to me now as a husband.

I have made one choice that leads to hundreds more life-changing choices.  I never saw this coming, for i only saw the one door that led to all the other doors. They said i would be ready when i got here.  I guess the best i can say for myself that i am ready to be ready.  

God has been convicting me to the uttermost what all it means now to be a husband.  No more interests in girls, that's for sure, and every interest in me whittled down to one - my wife.  I have to grow in love for people (toward this one first); i have to love others as i am loved (starting with this one); i have to be true in my relationships (starting with this one); i have to be virtuous and not vicious in all my dealings (starting with her) i want God to hear and care for my prayers (a reward for my listening and caring for my wife first).   

The marital relationship is a conduit of one's true self.  The good, bad and ugly show up in marriage life and become evident to the conscience, and hopefully the negatives are corrected because of the influence of conscience before they fester and boil over into the other partner's life and heart.  

An axiom carried along in some mechanics' minds is that 'everything affects everything.'   Everything has a result somewhere.   From the pace you walked this morning to work to the food you ate or didn't eat tonight, elements of your life have been affected.   

The words written in my journal, the thought i had just now, the places my eyes looked yesterday in Toronto... those affect me even now in some fashion.   The marriage part of 'everthing' is being affected too.  

My past presuppositions, expectations and dreams, and my present contemplations and actions are not without impact to this propeller of marriage.  The premise of marriage is easy; each person's job is to be as a propeller turning to keep the relationship, which is like an aircraft, going straight forward in flight.  So long as both propellers are turning with the same power, the machine is smooth and happy.  But like an engine, everything affects everything, and the result shows up on the propeller.  Bump the power lever; change the fuel; drain the oil; ice over the intakes; extend the inertial separators; disconnect a wire; lenthen an adjusting screw... the variables are endless.  Each of those changes initiates a chain reaction which ends at the propeller turning faster or slower than normal.  

All our human frailities with which we were born manifest themselves in the failures, poor habits, personality weaknesses and flaws, spiritual undisciplines and compulsions and make up the total package of 'you' and 'me.'  When we marry, all those things are coming into the union and affect the marriage itself.   Don't tell me that there is a perfect marriage or perfect couple because no one is perfect, no not one.  All have missed the mark which our Creator desires for us to reach.   Only through Him can a marriage endure through the turbulence of outside tribulations and the inside, hostile environment of human hearts.  

When it comes to loving my neighbor as i am loved... i can never match God's standards.  This is deeply convicting because my love, i know, is certainly often corrupted by my human frailties and vices, even without my knowing it.  Judgment passed on me due to my love would be dire indeed; but sometimes, knowing this is okay, though, because by my failures and depravity i see a more wonderful contrast that is the glorious love of God.  

I sat down today and meditated for awhile on Romans 4:25.   It says, simply, "Who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification."   

This is a portrait of complete, intentional love.  For a world that wants to sin...a world that wants to oust the rules, judgement and love of God... unto this world Christ came for to save.  Our offenses sent Him to the cross; God was compelled of Himself to lay down His own life for our iniquities.  

Then look what He did next... He raised up from the dead so He could prove that He has power to remove our sins from us and if we allow Him, what he will do next is proclaim our innocence.   He not only died to take away our sins, but He also came back to life so He could victoriously display you and me as innocent creatures.  That is love, my friend.