About a week ago I officiated a the wedding of a NewPointe couple. I love the hope and promise that weddings bring. I’m sappy in a way—I look at a couple like the one I married last week and I begin to dream dreams on their behalf. A wedding seems to promise so much—but often times, down the road, seems to under-deliver.
So I got to thinking about what it takes to make a marriage last. The answer, really, is simple: true love. And I’m not just talking about falling in love and “being” in love with each other. True love is biblical love described in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 (a passage I always read at weddings). Here’s a bit of what it says:
Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love…belief…hope… so where’s the hope? What is the optimism that we should carry with us into marriage? That good things will always happen? No. That would be contrary to everything we know to be true. That being a glass-half-full kinda person leads to better things? Maybe—but that’s not Paul’s point when writing to the Corinthians. Maybe it’s if we believe hard enough, the thing we want most will be sure to come our way. Nah…what Paul has in mind is much more profound.
The hopeful kind of love that Paul teaches is an optimism that rises from a profound and deep belief and hope in God. Three thoughts shape Paul’s optimistic outlook:
- God’s unending, undeniable, unconditional love
- The fact that Good Friday gave way to Easter Sunday.
- The reality that God’s Spirit was now living inside of human beings, empowering them to become a “new creation.”
Because of the Father’s love, the Son’s victory, and the Spirit’s power, genuine love—true love can believe, and hope, and endure…and that’s what gives us hope…hope for a better future, hope of real change in our lives, and the hope of a marriage filled with all the things we wanted it to be when we said, “I do.”
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