Last Fall, Bob and I visited the beautiful Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. From the moment we walked in, our eyes were drawn up. The architecture, the mosaics on the ceiling, everything drew our gaze upward and directed us to God.
I believe God gave us marriage as a picture of the relationship He wants with us. It is designed to make others look up at God. When people look at Christian marriage, they should see love, one-ness, and grace. They should see us serving one another and sacrificing for one another just like God has done for us.
Let them see us living out our wedding vows rather than compromising them or walking away from them. Right now, we have several friends who are living out the “in sickness or in health” part of their vows. We also know Christian couples who have walked out on the relationship or have not kept themselves only for their spouse. When non-Christians look on, which of these couples do you think make them look toward God?
When you look at the marriages around you, which ones do you admire? Why? What do they do that makes you say, “I want a marriage like that”? Which marriages make you say, “I never want to be like that”?
We want people to look at us and say, “Your marriage is different than what I see around me or in movies or on TV. This is what I want. Why is your marriage different and how do I get one like it? And, if it takes having a relationship with God, I want that too.”
Bob and I are pretty different. In our marriage, we’ve chosen to give each other room to be different. It’s okay to laugh and tease about the differences. I like to eat my vegetables in a beautiful, tasty salad. Bob puts his in a blender and drinks them. We call his version “sloop” and we both laugh. Once I tried to teach Bob how to make spaghetti sauce. I had fun writing about our different approaches in a story called, What Happens When Steady Eddy Meets the Improvisational Cook? Our friends know when we start teasing each other, it’s okay to laugh. It’s all lighthearted and done in a spirit of fun. We’ve been told that our ability to disagree agreeably is attractive to others.
We know of a mom and kids who willingly gave up having their family vacation so Dad could go to the Holy Land with their pastor. Their uncomplaining, gracious, giving attitudes made us look up. We know a dad who let his wife and kids order what they wanted at the fast food restaurant. He wouldn’t order a meal for himself; he finished their leftovers. His beautiful sacrifice and service for his family made us look up.
Think about what changes you could make in your marriage to cause people to look up to God. And, what is already in place that attracts them? How are you like the beautiful Cathedral Basilica?
Photo above used with permission under CC BY-SA 2.5. Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in St. Louis, Missouri by
