When Sinners Say "I Do"

My wife, Tiffany, and I recently attended a marriage conference in Hershey, PA. It was supposed to be a time to focus on the Lord and our marriage together, and while that did happen, it wasn't the ideal God-centered, romantic getaway I had envisioned. In fact, when the first session started with a comical skit of a husband and wife bickering back and forth about getting to the conference on time, it almost perfectly portrayed Tiffany and I only a few hours prior. Things hadn't started off well.

You would think that at a Christian conference, while being bombarded with practical Biblical teaching, drawn into amazing worship, and surrounded by hundreds of other Godly couples, that my interactions with Tiffany would be the picture of Christ-likeness...but you'd be wrong. All it took was the addition of a sick 9 month old daughter to inject a little stress into our time, and our Christ-likeness towards each other caved under the weight of unmet expectations and frustration.

Fortunately for us, the conference was called "Marriage and the Mercy of God." It's message wasn't that marriage is meant to complete you, but rather that marriage is meant (in part) to SANCTIFY you. And at that point what was obvious to Tiffany and I was that if sanctification is to take place in our marriage, MERCY and GRACE need to be the foundation. That is why the Gospel is such good news!

In America, we've stripped the word love of much of it's meaning. We "love" our favorite sports teams; we "love" the television show LOST; we "love" barbeque chicken pizza. And even when we say we love our spouses, much of the time what we mean is the dumbed down, selfish, "you complete me" love of Hollywood. That is NOT love, and more often than not it will lead you to a place of disillusionment and disappointment because another person can NEVER complete you! Many people never figure that out...they simply divorce and move on under the assumption that they chose the wrong person, and that there must still be someone out there somewhere that can complete them.

1 John 4:10 says that, "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." The Gospel shows us what love truly is! It is self-sacrificing; it is forgiving and gracious; it pursues even at great cost; it extends MERCY. A few verses later 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because He first loved us." This is good news! When we look to the love that God shows us, we can learn how to love our spouses with the REAL THING. It won't be easy. Dying to self never is. I'm HORRIBLE at it right now...but God' grace is real and I'm thankful that Tiffany knows that as well, because she's been extending it to me a heck of a lot lately.

SO, all you couples out there who are finding marriage to be a lot tougher than you thought it would be (translation: all of you) - look to the cross and keep saturating yourself with the love of God. It'll make all the difference in the world.

Note: Tiff and I bought a book at the conference that we're looking forward to reading together. It's called "When Sinners Say I Do: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage." If you're looking for a good resource for your own marriage, I'd highly recommend it! You can purchase it here.