LifeChange

The Awe Factor - God loves me, really?

There are certain times when you see something that just blows your mind.  I remember standing on the side of the Grand Canyon for the first time.  It was amazing.  Almost surreal.  That experience gave me a whole new appreciation for God, His creation and a realization of how small I am in the scheme of things.  

We've been talking about love and relationships this week.  While this may not seem on topic, I've realized that as my relationship with God grows stronger, matures and deepens that my love for Courtney does the same.  Perhaps the greatest thing we can do to work on our marriages is to pursue a deeper relationship with God.  

I want to share a video with you from a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  The first time I saw this video I had one of those Grand Canyon experiences and came away amazed that the God who created everything, cares about me.  This God, who is over all creation and all the universe wants to have a relationship with me, be involved in my life and desires my love.  Wow.

How do you keep love alive?

“Love must be learned and learned again and again; there is no end to it. Hate needs no instruction but waits only to be provoked.”
 – Katherine Anne Porter

How do you keep love alive?  I've only been married 5 years so I'll admit I'm still fairly new to this marriage thing (that's one reason we rely on God's word and the truths found in it so much... we don't have nearly as many experiences to draw from as some of you!)

So far we've established that love is something we learn, not something we find.  It's hard and takes work.  Today I want to ask the question, how do you keep love alive?  Here are a few things we do, or have discovered, over the last five years to keep our love alive and growing:

• Get Away Overnight - this has become even more important with kids.  Every year on our anniversary we get away for two nights ALONE.  
• Date Nights - we try to do at least 1-2 of these a month.  No kids, no one else (sorry friends!)  Just Courtney and I.
• Book - we try to go through one book a year together on the topic of marriage.  Some we've done in the past are:  Sacred Marriage, 5 Love Languages, His Needs Her Needs.
• Other Couples - we try to be intentional about spending time around other couples that are making it.  We glean wisdom from their relationship and know they are a positive influence on us.
• Pray Together - Tony challenged us all to do this a few weeks ago.  I'll be honest, Courtney and I were really good at this before kids.  We have not been doing this very consistently since, it's something we're working on.
• Worship & Communion Together - Unfortunately my role as pastor, and Courtney as a mom of three kids and volunteering almost every Sunday at Life Church makes this difficult.  However, about 1-2 times a month we do get to worship together on a Sunday and take communion together.  We cherish these times.

So, how do YOU keep love alive in your relationship?  I'm looking forward to your responses as this is a question Courtney and I are asking ourselves. We look forward to learning from you.  

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus

Do you remember the book Men Are From Mars, Women From Venus that came out in the early 90s?  I've never read it but the premise of the book is that men and women are very different, and it gives advice on how to recognize and handle those differences.  I don't think it takes much convincing, men and women are VERY different in many ways.  

One of the beautiful aspects of marriage is we are forced to learn to love a spouse that is different from us.  Jesus calls us to love those different then ourselves, even our enemies (which our spouse may seem like sometimes.)  Here's the catch though... we CANNOT love God and not love our spouse.  1 John 4:20-21 says:

"If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother."

The often times difficult job of loving your spouse is a treasure, that when discovered will lead you to a deeper and more passionate love for God (who is also very different then us.)  The better you learn to love your spouse the more you will love God.

Loving your spouse well doesn't just enhance your relationship with God, it will also help you love others better.  If we can't learn to love our spouse (who we've chosen to be with) then how can we love a prostitute, annoying co-worker, homeless person, obnoxious neighbor, orphan, know-it-all classmate, or that person with a lifestyle opposite yours?

Marriage is designed to call us out of ourselves and to love the different.  How have you seen the love for your significant other affect your love for God or others?

Which direction is your relationship going?

“Marriage requires a radical commitment to love our spouses as they are, while longing for them to become what they are not yet. Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another’s glory or toward degrading each other.”
 – Dan Allender & Themper Longman III

Relationships are dynamic not static.  They're always moving, people are either drawing closer together or further apart.  Every shared experience, conversation, correspondence and interaction moves our relationship in one of two directions.  

Some activities that draw us closer together are shared passion & vision, compliments, forgiveness, selflessness, humility, service, common interests, spiritual connections and unexpected surprises (the good kind.)  

Some activities that draw us apart are offenses, bitterness, unforgiveness, selfishness, pride, harsh words, competition, betrayal, criticism, second guessing and inaction (relationships take work and pursuit on our part to make them work.)

What direction is your relationship with your significant other heading in?  Regardless of the direction it's been going up to this point, what is one thing you can do today to enhance your relationship?

BTW... this also applies to our relationship with God.  It's not static... we're always either drawing closer to Him or drifting apart.

How well do you love?

How well do you love?  Yesterday we continued our series ONE at Life Church looking at relationships and marriage.  Tony tackled the misunderstood, often vague, topic of love.  None of us ever get taught how to love growing up and most of us have seen very few examples of it done successfully.  We were challenged to take 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and evaluate how well we love.  One way to do that is to replace the word love with your name.  Here is how mine looks:

"Scott is patient, Scott is kind.  Scott does not envy, Scott does not boast, Scott is not proud.  Scott is not rude, Scott is not self-seeking, Scott is not easily angered, Scott keeps no record of wrongs.  Scott does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  Scott always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." 

Which aspect of love in your life is missing or furthest from a reality in your relationship?  

The last sentence is where I find myself most lacking.  It may seem unrealistic for love to always protect, trust, hope and persevere. However, people who have been in love a long time seem to always think the best of their spouse, and I believe this is what God does with us.  I find myself often times quickly becoming critical, second guessing, doubting or not thinking the best of Courtney.  This is something I want to change.

Father, thank you for giving us such practical and clear advice on how to love well.  Teach me through your Holy Spirit about loving Courtney in a way that I always think the best of her.  Empower me through your Holy Spirit to make this a reality in my life and our marriage.  Amen.