Thursday, March 29, 2007

Marriage and romance

The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him" (Genesis 2:18).

It may sound incredible to you, but one of the major problems for marriages today is the emphasis on romantic love. The songs on our radios speak of wonderful, romantic, soul-fulfilling love. Store displays are filled with magazines devoted to the subject of new love in tender bloom, and many give assurance that their readers can have a perfect wedding. Celebrities like Tom Cruise gush over how wonderful the new love of their life is.

Americans are being peddled the idea that love is all about holding hands on a ferris wheel, intimate candlelight dinners, and walks along the beach under the light of a full moon. We do not hear songs about love seeing a couple through months of strenuous chemotherapy. Rarely do we see magazine cover stories about love flourishing in the face of bankruptcy. And how often do talk shows feature elderly couples whose life-long devotion to each other has never wavered?

Marriage is about more than thrilling, romantic love. Marriage is about promising to be there for another person, regardless of the circumstances. Marriage is about sharing good news as well as bad; vacations filled with fun, as well as long days seated by a hospital bed; the thrill of shopping for a new house, as well as the challenge of an empty bank account; the pleasure of sparkling conversation, as well as those times when depression has made your partner surly or unwilling to communicate.

Many couples break up when the first bloom of romance fades; they have been convinced that marriage is not worth participating in when the romance has fled. But continuing romance is not essential for a successful marriage. Romance is like nectar—just as nectar attracts a bee to a flower so that pollination can take place, so romance attracts men and women to each other to consider the possibility of marriage. Romance is an introduction, a way in which souls shake hands and start to get to know each other. But marriage is not built on a handshake and some small talk; marriage is built on a commitment to be a life-long friend, a companion and helper and cheerleader. Marriages only thrive when built on the kind of committed love that the Bible speaks of in 1st John chapter 3: This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians. This is the kind of love that anchors relationships; this is the kind of love needed for a marriage.

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