Falling in Love
Twice in my life, I’ve had friends who were in the process of divorcing their spouses who looked me straight in the face, and admitted, “I know, I’m reneging on my wedding vows.” At least they were honest. So were Bill McCartney and company when they challenged us to be promise-keepers. That’s what it’s really all about – promise keeping.
If I can’t trust someone to remain true to their word when they have made the most solemn pledge of their entire lives before God, spouse, and a Christian congregation, why should I trust them for anything else?
Now, of course, God is a God of amazing grace, wonderful forgiveness and countless fresh starts. And I have dear friends who sinned miserably with their first spouses and are having godly, inspiring second marriages.
But they repented. They called sinsin. They confessed to God and fellow humans. They prayed forforgiveness. They received godly counsel and, often, counseling. Their lives genuinely changed. The words we use for labeling concepts do matter.
Most countries and cultures in the history of the world that have practiced arranged marriages have had extremely low divorce rates. At least those couples recognized that it wasn’t feelings or emotions that made or unmade marriages. They were also less likely to define love as a feeling or an emotion in the first place.
1 Corinthians 13 ends with the famous 1 Corinthians 13:13 : “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” If love is eternal and love is the greatest of the attributes we will share throughout eternity, maybe we’d better start paying more attention in this life to what it truly involves. Richard Walker, a former pastor of mine and founder of AMOR Ministries, working with Brazilians in the Upper Amazon basin, put it well, “Love is the giving of the very best you have on behalf of another regardless of response.” – even when it’s thrown back in your face. Isn’t that what Jesus did with and for us?
