How Do You Know?

During the summer of 2008, I realized that the Lord had made me an ultimatum. Either I would allow Him to give me a great marriage at no cost to myself, or I would be single the rest of my life. Why He chose to be so gracious to me, I have no idea. I really don’t. (If you have been trying real hard to get something, you may want to tune in to God’s voice and find out if He’s making that ultimatum to you, too, regarding your thing.) The challenge is learning to receive.

I think it was a year or maybe more before that when He had asked me what a great marriage would look like. I didn’t know. I tried to come up with some ideas, but my mind was so filled with the behavior patterns of the women and men that I had known that I couldn’t see beyond into reality. Because I couldn’t see what a great marriage was, I couldn’t believe it, and because I couldn’t believe it, He couldn’t give it to me. God has been known to change His mind, but, fortunately for me, He stuck to His guns on this one, which is why I’m still single.

A couple of weeks ago, the Lord reminded me of the Last Supper. From there it was a fairly short step to Paul’s little marriage parables in Ephesians and Corinthians. I have a concise answer to the question now: a great marriage looks like the relationship between Christ and the church.

Do you remember when Jesus asked his disciples who he was? Peter’s answer must seem, to us, to be obvious. Of course Jesus was the Messiah, the son of the living God! But Peter’s statement came from the heart, and my guess is that Peter didn’t even know he knew that until it came out of his mouth. Likewise, it probably seems obvious to you that a great marriage looks like the relationship between Christ and the church. You may think that I must have read enough of the Bible to know that. You may know that, yourself.

But let me ask you a question. Did flesh and blood tell you that? Or was it revealed to you by your Father in heaven? The simple truth is that while there may be thousands of couples who "know" what a good marriage looks like, many of these same couples are getting divorces or living in miserable marriages because they don’t really know it. Years ago I studied 1 Corinthians chapter eleven, because I wanted to know what it meant. I got some information, but it didn’t mean anything until the Lord opened my eyes to all of this.

God has opened my eyes, and today I could give a lengthy description of the picture I’ve seen.

I could tell you about it, but if you want to see it, God must open your eyes, too, because it’s like nothing you’ve seen on earth.

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