Wow. At a marriage conference at church today led by Gary Thomas, I was reminded of some basic truths that will absolutely transform our marriages.
Gary pointed out that it's easy for us to love God in the "abstract." In other words, we can easily say we love God because He doesn't have bad breath, act ungrateful, wake up cranky, etc. But we are called to love a person who may. And, plain and simple, how well we love that person indicates how well we love God.
For those who say But you don't know my spouse, Gary had a question:
Are you God-centered or spouse-centered? In other words, do you respond to your spouse according to how he or she has treated you? Or have you truly placed God first so that you are responding to God, not to your spouse. If I am responding to God, my actions will more consistently be loving, kind and forgiving.
Adam and Laura Watson shared a song that Adam wrote only yesterday and it beautifully reflected Gary's premise that God wants to use the imperfections in our spouse to teach us to love perfectly. One of my favorite lines went something like this:
You are making me holy. You and the Father are shaping me to be holy.
Well, that didn't even touch on the highlights of this conference, so I have a lot of spiritual food to chew on and digest while Mike is on a two-week trip in the Middle East. Over and over, God has been telling me that it's not necessarily digging for deep spiritual truths that will transform my life, but obeying simple spiritual truth. This is simple stuff. But it's life-changing.
(Thank you, Bethany and Chris, for serving today. You were wonderful greeters.)
No comments:
Post a Comment