Love and Marriage

And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31 ESV).

Jesus often combined the relationship we have with God and that with others in His teachings. The more I understand about my relationship with God, the more I am able to understand my relationship with others. This is especially true when we consider our mates. So many people marry for the wrong reasons and then wonder why their lives are so full of grief and difficulty. I read the following story. Picture the scene: It is in the recreation room of a Californian retirement facility. Four ladies are playing bridge and chatting and keeping an eye on the flow of people in and out of the area. Soon an elderly gentleman wanders into the room. They all recognize him for a new comer and they all perk up. One of the ladies says, "Hello there. You're new here, aren't you?" He smiles and replies that he is, indeed. He had just moved in that morning. Another one of the ladies says, "Where did you live before you moved in?" He says, "I was just released from San Quentin, where I spent the last twenty years." A third lady perks up at this and say, "Oh, is that so? What were you in for?" He says, "I murdered my wife." The fourth lady sits up in her chair, smiles and say, "Oh, then you're single?"

Loneliness is just one of the many wrong reasons to marry. There are others, of course. Each of these drive us away from one another. Long, affirmative relationships begin with an understanding of the stages of a love relationship. In your marriage, they ought to be the same as with the Lord. There are three of these.

1. The first love stage is that wonderful, euphoric, stage when you are falling in love and you are looking at your lover with a glaze in your eyes. No matter what is said or done, you can’t seem to get enough of one another. If you are a Christian, undoubtedly you remember those first moments of your new life in Christ. You couldn’t pray enough, or read the Bible enough, or talk about Jesus enough to satisfy the hunger you felt for Him. That’s the “honeymoon” phase of a relationship.

2. But then there's the second stage of love, the wilderness. Your mate is not quite what you expected and marriage can be hard. In the same way, we discover that Christianity is not easy and everything is not full of rainbows. That is kind of a surprise. It’s sort of like the dad who said to his daughter's boy friend, "The man who marries my daughter will get a prize." On his first anniversary, he said, "Okay, I’m ready for my prize." The journey can be long and difficult. Most relationships end here.

3. The third stage is invincible love. It is not a time that is free from pain, because we will not be free from pain on this earth, but it is a time of confidence where you know the heart of your spouse. You know their heart toward you and that they want only the best for you. Even though they may not always make sense, you know that they love you. You are confident in them and in the fact that your love is here to stay. A lot of marriages never make it to the third stage and instead settle for picnics in the wilderness. Successful couples regard their spouses as friends, the kind of person they would want to have as a friend even if they weren't married to them," says Robert Lauer, co-author with his wife, Jeanette, of "Till Death Do Us Part. "There's a tendency," he says, "especially when children are young, to focus on children, or, when there are two careers in a marriage, to have people on different schedules, like two ships passing in the night. Long-term successful couples keep coming back to the fact that their main commitment is to being a couple."