My wonderful parents recently celebrated 25 years of being happily married. My mother was only 19 when they met, 20 by the time they were married.
“How can this be?” I have often thought. How can two people go from being absolute strangers, unaware of the other’s mere existence, to finally deciding that they are going to spend their entire lives together, with every possible flaw and fetish exposed and vulnerable? This seems so ludicrous, but it’s only the beginning. After deciding to be together forever, how can two people then actually make it work? How can they make it 25 years without killing each other or walking away?
I have always thought the answer lay in simply being certain to find the right person, and that if the right person is not found, divorce.
Wow, that is a LOT of pressure.
Perhaps even more impressive, however, than being married 25 years is the reality that my parents have been Christians even longer than that. They had given up their lives to follow Jesus and find joy and rest in Him long before being married, and they have continued to serve Him their entire lives.
In my short life, though I am just beginning to take on this mountain climb of gaining knowledge and wisdom, I feel that I have learned one key to love, to all types of love.
Love is a choice, not an emotion.
Of course there are great emotional times, certainly the wedding day, but those times last for a moment, not a lifetime. There are times in marriage in which couples desire absolutely nothing other than being together and making memories, and there are undoubtedly times when the same couples desire nothing other than to be anywhere except together, but that doesn’t mean they have fallen out of love!
In quite the same way, I have found in my own life that sometimes all I want to do is be with Jesus, worshiping Him and resting in His presence, but also that often I really want nothing of Jesus or His presence. I would rather do my own thing, if I am honest with myself, in these times and just not worry about the whole God thing.
Some may be able to relate to this cycle:
Go to summer youth camp (or some type of church event), have an amazing time, read the Bible three or four mornings in a row, worship Jesus three or four nights in a row (the last night being especially powerful), come home super pumped to change the world for Jesus, read the Bible and pray heavily for a day or two, get rid of every secular song on the iPod, begin to read and pray less, begin to let other things enter in, eventually go back to normal life of not wanting to follow Jesus every day.
This was my life for so many years, and while those emotional experiences are absolutely amazing and often life-changing, they cannot be what carries the Christ-follower, the spouse or anyone in any relationship.
Our relationships, with Jesus, spouses and everyone else, cannot be based upon our emotions. If there is one thing in this world that is ever changing it is human emotion, and there is really no way to predict it. These relationships must be stronger than emotion. The choice must be made every day to lose one’s self and, regardless of emotion, love.
I could say a lot more, for I feel that what I have said is just the beginning of a very long discussion and learning process, and of course our relationship with Jesus is far different than any other relationship, for He is never changing and always faithful, and of course I do not think the process of finding a spouse is as simple as picking a random person and choosing to love them, but alas, I shall digress.
I think true love is found in choosing to love someone when it is so extremely difficult, and I think that is one key to finding everlasting love, to being married for 25 years and to following and serving Jesus for the rest of life and into eternity.
Let us choose to love well today and every day.
