A young couple were on their honeymoon. The husband was sitting in the bathroom on the edge of the bathtub saying to himself, “Now how can I tell my wife that I’ve got really smelly feet and that my socks absolutely stink? I’ve managed to keep it from her while we were dating, but she’s bound to find out sooner or later that my feet stink. Now how do I tell her?”
Meanwhile, the wife was sitting in the bed saying to herself, “Now how do I tell my husband that I’ve got really bad breath? I’ve been very lucky to keep it from him while we were courting, but as soon as he’s lived with me for a week, he’s bound to find out. Now how do I tell him gently?”
The husband finally plucks up enough courage to tell his wife and so he walks into the bedroom. He walks over to the bed, climbs over to his wife, puts his arm around her neck, moves his face very close to hers and says, “Darling, I’ve a confession to make.”
And she says, “So have I, love.”
To which he replies, “Don’t tell me, you’ve eaten my socks.”
Who knows if that one will make?!
If we are serious about pursuing spiritual growth through marriage, we must convince ourselves to refrain from asking the spiritually dangerous question: “Did I marry the right person?”
A far better alternative to questioning one’s choice is to learn how to live with one’s choice. A character in the Anne Tyler novel, A Patchwork Planet, comes to realize this too late. The book’s 32-year-old narrator has gone through a divorce and now works at an occupation that has him relating almost exclusively with elderly people. As he observes their long-standing marriages, he comes to a profound understanding:
“I was beginning to suspect that it made no difference whether they’d married the “right” person. Finally, you’re just with who you’re with. You’ve signed on with her, put in half a century with her, grown to know her as well as you know yourself or even better, and she’s become the right person. Or the only person, might be more to the point.
I wish someone had told me that earlier. I’d have hung on then; I swear I would have. I never would have driven Natalie to leave me.” Gary Thomas, Sacred Marriage (Zondervan, 2000),
A long-lasting good marriage IS God’s idea! And as we saw last week, that first step is to commit to His plan. Just as we know that choosing God’s plan for our marriage is the beginning of having a good long-lasting one, so we must also guard against the continuous immoral temptations that come to destroy it.
Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.
Just like we must guard our hearts to follow the Lord, so husbands and wives must have faithful eyes for our spouses. Don’t say, “If I were not a Christian I could….. Ohhh, if I were just married to him I could probably have a nice life… if I were just married to her I would never feel…” The grass is always greener over the septic tank!
I heard a minister once say that each time he went out to another city he would carry a picture of his family and put it on top of the TV. He wanted to look square at his wife and children when temptation would come.
Sorry, I can’t tell any jokes here. The price is too high to lose your family over immorality. It’s true there is a high cost to low living. The price is something we do not want to pay. If we will do whatever it takes to stay faithful, we get the reward of a long lasting family-and that is worth it!