Lately, I’ve discussed with a lot of women about how they “wished they would have listened to their gut instinct” and not married the man they did.  If only they would have listened to others insights about the man they were dating or

Vince & Louise Bazemore, Denise’s Parents married 59 years!

engaged too.  Could they even be saying to themselves…”I wish I would have waited for Mr. Right!”  Point is, you are married to Mr. Right, a gift from God.

Marriage is a gift from God.  God designed marriage and in the garden He created Eve and gave her to Adam as his perfect provision for his marriage partner for a lifetime.  Granted, there was no sin in the garden at this time.  But I wonder if we would have said to God, “You mean this gift with all it’s flaws, bad habits, mean words, ugly sin and overweight ego is my gift from you?”  I doubt we would have said that in the garden.  But then, that was BEFORE sin entered into OUR world.  However, I don’t believe it would be any different had we said those same words to God here on earth now.  Sin or no sin, we live in a society that always wants something better, some better fit, something more like able, something new, something that fits us better and even has the same qualities, likes and interests that we do.

Does this sound like thoughts you’ve pondered about your marriage partner?  We are surrounded by a generation of people “trying out” marriage like a new pair of shoes.  I wear them until they hurt my feet, don’t match my new style or just get old to look at.  AND we are off to the shoe store to buy a better, more up to date style and with the arch not broken down.  Or sometimes there is no marriage at all, just a “playing” house type generation.   Co-habitating couple and remarriages are something our ministry works with every month.  As the age in which couples marry is getting older by the decade, we are seeing an influx of PRE-ENGAGEMENT couples.  These couples are seemingly wanting to make sure that things are being looked at with a magnifying glass before going to the altar.  This Pre-Engagement coaching is an effort to clean up the bagage of their past.  Let’s face it, even though many are marrying for the first time later in life, or remarry again in life, we are all carrying “baggage” aboard.  Knowing what to do with that “baggage” and how to care for each other’s hearts is what we work through weekly at our dinning room table.

Marriage is God’s design.  It’s his design and the way he designs it is perfect.  Leave, cleave, and receive your spouse, for better or worse.  The leaving and cleaving part is so muddled in today’s marriages.  The receiving is a continual act of worship to our Heavenly Father in accepting that however broken down, out of style or habitual our spouse seems, he or she is still God’s gift to you.  If you’ve entered into marriage, it’s meant to last a lifetime.  Unless you were at the altar with  gun as in a shotgun wedding for real, you made a choice to enter into one of God’s most sacred institutions, that of marriage.  Because this institution is sanctioned by the government we have a document or piece of paper that shows we are married.   Just because the government allows for divorce, it doesn’t mean that God would be okay with it.  In Malachi 2:16 God states that he “hates divorce.”  So, what option do you have if you marriage seems broken down, lifeless, out of your style?  We believe you can honor God in every marriage.

We believe that you can and SHOULD have a God honoring type of marriage as stated in Proverbs 5:18-19.  A marriage that is exhilirating!  In marriage when two people just go through the motions of living together and not being connected as God intends, it is not a light unto God gifts, let alone exhilirating.  Usually bad choices and sin of bitterness are involved blocking our the light coming through are marriage to honor God.

And NO, YOU have NOT chose the wrong gift.  God has allowed you to marry the perfect gift for you, with all thier flaws, known and unknown.  Why is this?  I believe it’s show we can show light until God and how He allows us to a better person given our circumstances…be they old worn out shoes or not.  We walk boldly with Joy from our Heavenly Father and connecting with our spouse as God intends.  God himself wants so much of us, he too wants to be connected at the heart level with us.  If we are not connected to Him first we can not have the marriage relationship that mirrors His Image.

I pray in 2011 that we will all be more aware of the gift God has given us in marriage and in our Spouse…the perfect gift for us for our marriage partner for a lifetime.