Fluff and Flowers

I love weddings.  I love the fluff and the flowers and the lace.

But flowers don't make a marriage.  Flowers die.  All the sentimental romantic stuff we enjoy in movies just doesn't cut it when shoved up against real life.

Not even Victoria's Secret can help when you have a disabled child or no money to pay the bills.  Sometimes it doesn't take a crisis to erode a marriage, just the everyday pettiness of our own selfish selves.

We get irritated at our spouse's habits.  We feel constricted by the other's wants or needs.  Our affection can get eroded and replaced, slowly, by bitterness.

I like to watch romantic movies in which, against all odds, Cinderella gets her Prince Charming and they live happily ever after.  I like these movies because this is how marriage ought to be, first of all, and also, because it is a prophecy of things yet to come (more on this later).

"But I thought you said marriage wasn't fluff and flowers."  Romance goes deeper, way deeper than the flowers.  True love is embodied in the vows.  Listen to them again: ". . . for better or for worse . . . "  Do you hear what this is saying?

It means that when your spouse makes a really bad decision, you stand by him or her.  It means that you stick close when that child is in critical condition or when the money is tight.  It means that you won't allow your innate selfishness to get in the way of your promises.  You will be there, not just physically, but wholeheartedly, all the days of your life.

This mistake we make is this: that feelings are enough.  We don't say this, but it is how we act.  Psychologists describe the symptoms of "falling in love" in harsh, biochemical terms.  In the best of circumstances, the hormones will subside.  

Christian love is described in I Corinthians 13.  "Love is patient, love is kind . . . love endures all things . . . love never fails."  In the Bible we get the clear picture of a kind of love that does not rely on hormones for its power, but on the Holy Spirit of God.  It is not selfish, but self-less.  It gives and doesn't take.

If you are reading this and thinking, "Impossible.  This kind of love is impossible," then you are on the right track.  It is impossible in ourselves.  Only Jesus Christ can give us this ability to love.  And it's not by magic.  It's not the kind of transaction in which God magically pours this ability into you.

Instead, it works like this: you come to God through Jesus Christ, acknowledging your sinful state. Your condition before God is really your only true need.  Through the blood of Christ we can be forgiven and reconciled to God.  Once we have this life in Christ we walk by faith, obeying His word.

If our focus is on Christ and not our marriage, there is hope.  I know it sounds paradoxical, but it is true.  If two people are walking together with their eyes on Christ they are walking in the same direction.  They have the power of the Spirit to put to death the sins of the flesh--the biggie here is selfishness, which comes in many forms and will destroy a marriage.  Even when your partner is not a Christian, there can still be a quiet joy as God overrules anything and everything for good.

And the end game?  Cinderella and the Prince lived happily ever after.  Our Prince is Christ.  One day the picture, the type, of earthly marriage will dissolve away and we will be a part of the Greater Truth: the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.  A perfect, spotless Bride comes to the One Who made her that way.  What a day that will be!