November 4, 2010

• Love and War

  by John and Stasi Eldredge. yep. those people. The guy wrote “Wild at Heart” (which I probably told every guy in my life to read) and she wrote “Captivating” (which I probably told every girl in my life to read). Now they wrote a marriage book. And while I am not married, maybe someday, and if someday, I want to do it darn well. DARN well.

  This is long. Skip what you want. I typed it–because it is worth it to read. Especially if you are married. Or not.

  The wife wants:

  1.       To be seen and valued for who I am, to be truly known by my husband.

  2.       To live my life with my husband, to share in the adventure of life.

  3.       To lean into (his) strength.

  The husband wants:                                                    

  1.       To be believed in.

  2.       (her) to ride with me in some great adventure.

  3.       Beauty.

  “The vision is always solid and reliable; the vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud.”  G.K. Chesterton

  “You will love getting married; it’s great to find that one special person you want to annoy the rest of your life.” –Rita Rudner

  “We made love last night. And it was good. Really, really good. Utter oneness. Unfettered desire awoken and offered and satisfied. When it is good it is a window into Eden. As we lay there afterward, (her) head on my shoulder, it seemed that time had slipped away and taken with it all that had come between us. Lying there I know that this is what is true—true of love, true of us, true of marriage. How did I forget? I found myself realizing again that this is the woman I love, this is what I want, and this is what is true of our marriage.”

  From “Shall We Dance”:

  Wife: why is it do you think that people get married?

  Detective: passion

  Wife: no

  Detective: that’s interesting because I would have taken you for a romantic. Why then?

  Wife: Because we need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet. I mean what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things. The bad things. The terrible things. The mundane things. All of it. All the time. Every day. You’re saying, “your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.”

  Top things that would most help your marriage:

  1.       Find life in God

  2.       Deal with your brokenness

  3.       Learn to shut down the spiritual attacks that come against your marriage

  What parents attempt to show their children:

  1.       You are loved more than you could imagine

  2.       The world does not revolve around you

  Dream together. “As (he) and I explored our dreams, it began to dawn on me that all my past experiences uniquely qualified me to partner in this project with this uniquely qualified man. My heart leapt inside of me when I realized that not only did we want the same things, but I was the right woman to come alongside John and help make them happen. I wanted to. Something deep in my soul was coming alive as we continued to envision what it was that God had placed in our hearts to do.”

  1.       Change your perspectives. We take the life we have right now, and we say to ourselves “we are in this together.”

  2.       Finding a shared adventure is to cultivate an adventurous marriage. What are you looking forward to, together?

  Remember these truths:

  1.       You are your spouse live in a love story that is set in the midst of a very real war

  2.       God gave us marriage, both as a picture of his love to the world, and because we are going to need each other. We are not playing house—we are living in an epic love story

  3.       Your marriage is a perfect storm because your brokenness and sin collide in devastating precision with your spouse’s. Yet God is in that, because he is using your marriage to transform you.

  4.       When it comes to love and happiness, we are broken cups. We will put untold amounts of pressure on our marriage until we realize that God is the waterfall; he is the love we are looking for. The greatest gift you can give your spouse (and everyone else in your life) is to have a real relationship with God

  5.       If you have to choose between companionship or eros, go with companionship. It is the bedrock of a marriage

  6.       You have an enemy, and it is not your spouse. The sooner you come to terms with that, the better

  7.       God has rigged the world for adventure. You have a mission, your spouse has a mission, and your marriage has a mission.

  When the storms come, remember:

  1.       I am loved. Deeply and truly (Jer. 31:3)

  2.       I am secure. Utterly and completely (John 10:28-30)

  3.       I am forgiven. Totally (Col. 2:13)

  4.       God is with me. He will never, ever abandon me (Heb. 13:4)

  “For a woman to give herself over o her husband fully—which is sex as it ought to be—he has to have won her heart, and won it again if only in small, simple ways today. If she is going to be able to abandon herself—which is almost always essential to her orgasm—her man is going to have to have paid attention to the relationship. How beautiful of God to do that; it is so arresting. There are no shortcuts. This act is meant to be the climax of intimacy. God builds into the sexual mystery an insistence upon love and trust outside of bed.

  “There is only one alternative to death and that is to love.” –Glenn Gray

  “Failing to love my husband well does not mean I am a failure. Hurting my husband does not mean I am a hurtful person. Sinning against him (or anyone else for that matter) does not mean my truest identity is as a sinner. As a child of God, I am holy and dearly loved. I am not a sinner but a saint. I have a clean heart, a circumcised heart. My body is now the dwelling place, the temple of the living God. My identity is not up for grabs; it is settled. I belong to God and every single thing he says about me remains true. It is because of his amazing love and because I believe what he says about me, to me, that I am able to face my sin and failures and not turn into putty.”

  “What do our readers need, Lord? What do their marriages need? He said, Healing. So I asked, How is the healing going to come? And he said, forgiveness.”

  A marriage ceremony:

  “Daniel and Megan, you are about to abandon yourselves to each other, throw caution to the wind, forsake independence, isolation, and all others. You will vow to each other your undying love. Before you do, we must call this what it is—this is perfect madness.

  As an inspiration, how lovely. As a reality, how rare. Everyone wants love; everyone is looking for love. Few seem to find what they are looking for; fewer still seem able to sustain it. Why in heaven’s name would you come to church to publicly dedicate yourselves to something so risky, so fraught with danger, so scandalous? “The heart has its reasons,” Pascal confessed, “that reason knows not of.” Deep in the wellspring of our hearts there is a desire—for intimacy, beauty, and adventure. And no matter what anyone might say, we look for it all the days of our lives.

  Friends, I know what you are thinking. As you watch this today, there is something in your hearts that says, “well, maybe. Maybe this time. Maybe this couple.” But what if Daniel and Megan, in all their frail humanity, are living out before us right now a picture, a metaphor of something far more real and substantial. I would like to suggest that this is no common passion play. Things are never what they seem. If you would see clearly you would see with the eyes of the heart. That is the secret of every fairy tale, because it is the secret to the Gospel, because it is the secret to life.

  Things are not what they seem, and so if we would understand our lives—especially our marriages—we must listen again to the gospel and the fairy tales based upon it. There are larger events unfolding around us, events of enormous consequence. A lamp is lit and love is lost. A box is opened and evil swarms the world. An apple is taken and mankind is plunged into darkness. Moments of immense consequence are taking place all around us. Especially this.

  Dearly beloved, you see before you a man and a woman. But there is more here than meets the eye. God gave to us this passion play to reenact, right here and now, the story of the ages. This is the story of mankind, the one story we have been telling ourselves over and over again, in every great myth and legend and poem and song. It is a love story, set in the midst of desperate times, set in the midst of war. It is a story of a shared quest. It is a story of romance. Daniel and Megan are playing out before you now the deepest and most mythic reality in the world. This is the story of God’s romance with mankind.

  A boy and a girl thrown together in some desperate journey. If we believed it, if we actually saw what was taking place right here, we would say desperate, earnest prayers. We would salute them both and we would hold our breath for what happens next. Daniel and Megan, it is time to make your vows. After this, there is no turning back.”

  The church is very quite. Only the older couples have any idea what those lovebirds have just promised, bless their hearts. They really believe that their marriage will somehow avert the darker side of the pledge; we all believed that.

  “Daniel, you are about to give your life away. You are stepping up, you are volunteering for the toughest assignment a man will ever be given: to offer your heart and your strength to Megan, time and time and time again, for the rest of your days. You have some sense of the weightiness of it. That’s why you have that nervous grin on your face. Nothing will be harder. And nothing will be richer. My words to you today are: it can be done. And it is worth it. To discover that because of your strength and sacrifice Megan can become the woman she was meant to be, that somehow your fierce love can free her heart and release her beauty—that is worth whatever this may cost you. By the grace of God, you can do this. You have what it takes.

  Megan, you have dreamed of this day for a long, long time. And now you, also, are about to give your life away. It might seem easy and natural at first, to offer your feminine heart and your vulnerable beauty to Daniel. But do not be deceived. Nothing requires more courage than for a woman to truly offer herself to her man time and time and time again. Look around. Do you see many older women risking this? But I also say to you: it can be done. And it is worth it. To discover that because of your beauty and sacrifice Daniel can become the man he was meant to be, that somehow your fierce love can free his heart and arouse his strength—that is worth whatever this may cost you. By the grace of God, you can do this. You are that beautiful woman.

  The scariest thing a woman ever offers is to believe that she is worth pursuing, to open her heart up to pursuit, to continue to open up her heart and offer the beauty she holds inside, all the while fearing it will not be enough. The scariest thing a man ever chooses is to offer his strength without knowing how things will turn out. To take the risk of playing the man before the outcome is decided. To offer his heart of strength while fearing it will not be enough.

  The lie to you, Megan, will be, “You are nothing more than a disappointment.” And the lie to you, Daniel, will be, “You are not really man enough for this.” And so, I have two words for you today. Words that I want you to keep close in your hearts as you go forward: You are. Megan, you are radiant, you shimmer, you shine, you are a treasure of a woman, a gem, you are. Daniel, you are a man, you are strong, and you are valiant. You have what it takes. Hold this close to your hearts. It can be done. And it is worth it.”  

   

  • 5:07 pm
  • 1 Comment