Always on our anniversary, we remember our wedding day. And we celebrate another year of our love together. I love to celebrate with my husband, Skip, and simply enjoy him. This day marks our 40th celebration as husband and wife. We lavish each other with gifts of kindness, attention, sweetness and well, love. My heart is full of him all the time, but it simply bubbles over on such an occasion as this. Sometimes, however, my heart has not always bubbled over for him because I have misjudged his motives and mine. These were times when I had not yet learned to “die” to my own selfishness.
My desire is for my earthly husband. God gives wives that desire. But another desire exists…for my heavenly Husband. God says that He is the Only One who knows the motives of our heart. He is the Only One who will transform those motives to line up with His perfect motives. Sometimes, my motives are not pure toward my husband, whether it be my husband of 40 years or my eternal Husband. And, over the years, others have judged my husband with incorrect motives and have spoken unkind things about him. But God says that He is the Only One who knows the motives of our heart. He is the Only One who will transform those motives to line up with His. God loves to show us about loving with His love – empty of our selfish desires; especially toward the ones that we love the deepest and most intimately.
My husband is a quiet, humble man of God who loves me and I believe that he would die for me. He loves God and is saddened by the lies spoken against Him. He loves his country and is saddened by those who try to destroy it. He loves his family and is saddened by anyone who wants to destroy them. He loves God’s creation – all of it and it pains him to see destruction of God’s beauty.
God blessed us with four wonderful children who are now having children of their own. Throughout the years as we raised our children, my husband had to demonstrate tough love on rebellion – at least to the extent that he understood how to be tough. Sometimes our beloved children judged his toughness incorrectly and that hurt. But, don’t we do the same thing with God? We judge Him incorrectly because we don’t know His heart. That saddens God.
In the past several years, I been seeking God’s heart as I desire to know Him and fall more deeply in love with Him. I have been given the time to examine many areas of my life and my character as the Holy Spirit leads me. I thought about my beloved husband of 40 years. The trials have made us stronger. Jesus is the Center of our marriage today. But it wasn’t always that way.
Sometimes, we misjudged each other’s hearts. We blamed each other for our failures. But, because of grace and mercy, we began to ask God to examine our hearts, and they were not empty words. Not only did we want to know each other’s hearts…I mean, really know, but we wanted to know our own hearts. And we wanted to know our spiritual Husband’s heart…I mean, really know it. As I discovered, neither husband is a hard taskmaster…at least not toward His beloved family. And each husband has the responsibility of helping his wife be all that she was created to be.
When we are born into the family of God, He looks at us in a new way. God is always for us and He always loves us. It’s just like when my husband and I were married, we looked at each other in a new way. Sure, we understood our passionate love for each other at first but as we celebrated another and yet another anniversary, our love grew to include a deep companionship and deeper, more sacrificial love.
We are for each other and we love each other – as completely as we can understand. Jesus loves us so much that He died so that “we” could be one with Him and enter into a sacred covenant with Him. In the same way, my husband and I were joined together in a sacred covenant ordained by God. In that covenant, we have learned that we are to stop judging each other and love each other the same way that Christ loves us. That’s supernatural – for without God’s hand in our marriage and in our lives, we would have perished. We continue to lay down our own lives and die to our selfish desires – little by little – the same way that we lay down our lives for our spiritual Husband – little by little – until we are so entwined with Him that His will becomes ours and we become the fullness of each other in the sacred covenant.
It saddens me that so few couples are enjoying what we have been blessed to have. People misjudge others. People misjudge God. People don’t forgive themselves or else blame God for stuff that the devil has done to them. Immaturity – blindness – selfishness – sin. All the attributes of the fallen sin nature of humanity. Why do human beings reject the love of God towards them? God says because the devil has blinded them. Is God a hard taskmaster? Some think so. I did, for many years. But, God already exhibited His tough love toward us – through His Son, Jesus, Whom He sacrificed for us. Can love get any tougher than that?
As I consider my life and this occasion, my heart grieves for the deception of the people in the world who blame and misjudge our beloved Heavenly Father and Husband.
Father, use me to show others how wonderful You are. Bring Your Bride’s heart into alignment with Your heart that we may be one. Thank you for giving my husband and I forty years together to learn about love and You.
TheTruthAboutaWoman 