A person can love the idea of marriage, but that is not the same as actually loving your spouse.
Most likely whatever notions, plans or dreams we had before marriage were put to the test, sharpened, blown apart after marriage. Each of my kids liked the idea of coffee, but once they sipped it, they realized it wasn’t what they thought.
So, you’ve sipped and tasted marriage, and it’s not what you imagined it would be. Now what? Can you slowly acquire a taste for it? Should you try to lighten and sweeten the reality of things with the artificial and the superficial? Should you give it up altogether?
Imagine if our Heavenly Father only loved the idea of a people for His own possession? Imagine if Jesus only loved the idea of a glorious resurrection? Imagine if the Holy Spirit only loved the idea of our eternal joy?
God doesn't imagine love or think love or try love. God doesn't have ideas about love. The reality is that He is love!
He actually came into our history to serve us at our lowest point. He actually suffered and died in our place on a cross. He lovingly convicts us of our actual sin and kindly leads us to actual repentance. He really forgives us of our sins and really frees us from enslavement to them. He truly leads us into abundant life, truly fills our hearts with joy, and truly guards our minds with peace.
Imagine a marriage without sin, without offense, without frustration, without fighting, without hurt, without... That's a fantasy.
The truth is that all these things are present in the unhealthiest and healthiest of marriages. But imagine a marriage filled with forgiveness, with patience, with joy, with gentleness, with encouragement, with... That's a reality!
The difference is love, love living, moving, growing, breathing in the heart through the grace and power of God.
God's love is more than an emotion, more than a dream. The love of God is the true way of living and experiencing the life of God. The life of God is the true way of knowing and enjoying the love of God.
Drink deep.
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:7-12
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