By David ReayWednesday 4 Mar 2015LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read Ephesians 5:33
33 So again I say,each man must love his wife as he loves himself,and the wife must respect her husband. (NLT)
It has been said (by a man-the writer Washington Irving) that a man begins courting a goddess and ends up marrying a mere mortal. Women may well claim something similar. This is not to diminish marriage and so surrender to cynicism. It is to acknowledge human reality and so base our marriages,and all relationships,on reality rather than illusion.
Some of the experts tell us that marriages fail because we often expect too much of them. When the god or goddess turns out to be human after all,we get disillusioned and give up. We may then embark on a futile search for someone who will finally live up to our expectations. Marriage becomes an exercise in egocentricity which crosses over into a fantasy land of impossible expectations.
Other experts tell us that a happy marriage is a union of two very good forgivers. This is so because whoever we marry is going to be imperfect and let us down somewhere along the line. Because we are not always good at loving we need to get good at forgiving.
The marital love spoken of in the Bible is not some idealised romanticism but is earthed in real life. It is the love more typified by the long-term marathon rather than the short-term sprint. It is the love that is,at its best,a pale reflection of the love God has for his human creation. It is a love that doesn’t come naturally but only supernaturally.
Blessings
David Reay