Tag: Relationships

Made for Each Other

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This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, Married for Good. For the next five weeks we are going to be talking about marriage: what it is, how it works, and how to do it well. If you are married, have been married, might be married someday, or even don’t have it on your radar at all, there is going to be something for you in this series. Let’s start today, though, by clarifying just what exactly it is. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Made for Each Other

Weddings are big business…marriages, not so much. This is because everyone loves the idea of getting married. Well, that’s not completely true. The idea of marriage itself has fallen on somewhat hard times of late, but nonetheless, most everyone enjoys a love story that ends with exchanged, “I dos,” at an altar. And, true to form, people will spend enormous amounts of money on a wedding. I did a bit of digging, and the best estimate I could find held that the U.S. wedding industry is worth about $78 billion this year. As much money as we are willing to spend on getting married, however, most folks are not willing to spend quite as much money on staying married. Once we get across that particular line, we tend to treat it like we have arrived. We’ve crossed the finish line and now we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of our many labors. Of course, if you are someone who has experienced any part of a marriage journey, you know that this isn’t perhaps quite so true as our culture makes it out to be—as indeed as we would like for it to be. Marriage can be harder than it is often made to seem. 

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One Is the Loneliest Number

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This past Sunday we covered one more load we carry when we try to do life apart from Jesus as we draw near the end of our series, A Heavy Load. This week we talked about the load of loneliness. Life was not meant to be lived alone. We were made for relationships. When we do life without Jesus, though, maintaining those relationships because entirely more difficult than it should be. Read on to find out why and how we can fix this.

One Is the Loneliest Number

Have you ever spent a significant amount of time alone? I don’t mean simply hanging out at home when nobody else is around for a couple of hours. I’m talking about a time when you didn’t have anybody around for an extended period of time. Honestly, Covid subjected a lot of folks to that in ways and times they were neither expecting nor for which they were prepared. And maybe you’re sitting there thinking how much you would like to have an extended amount of time by yourself because you can’t think of the last time you weren’t being constantly bombarded by people, but it’s a different animal wanting something like that because you can’t have it and being stuck alone because you can’t be around people like you want to be. Being alone…isn’t good for us. 

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Digging in Deeper: Ephesians 5:25

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“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

“Another review for you this morning and a verse we’ve talked about before. This time a television medical drama. Entries in that particular genre are a dime a dozen these days. Each new TV season brings multiple new premiers. Today’s focal feature premiered in the U.S. in 2017 and is copied from a Korean series of the same name that ran for one season in 2013. It is an import I’m glad we’re able to enjoy. It falls in the plot pattern of past shows like Doogie Howser, M.D. and House where the main characters is just a bit different from everyone else. In this one he’s not a child genius or a jerk, he’s autistic. Let’s talk this morning about The Good Doctor.

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You Are Loved

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In this final installment in our series, Hard to Love, we land with both feet on the biggest and most consequential truth there is: God loves you. Read on and marvel with me at how great our God is that though we didn’t want Him, He loved us still. Let this love fill you to a fullness you’ve never known before and pour out of you onto the people around you…even the ones who are hard to love.

You Are Loved

Have you ever watched somebody get something they didn’t deserve?  How’d you feel about that?  Did it inspire you?  Did it sicken you?  Were you pretty well ambivalent about it?  I would guess that most of us, depending on the exact details, would tend toward feeling inspired by such a story.  This becomes especially true when the person goes on to live up to the expectations of the gift.  Perhaps the most classic example of this is from the beloved story by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, which Lisa and I actually got to see on stage back at the beginning of the month.  It was absolutely amazing.  The hero of the story, Jean Valjean, is set down the path of righteousness he walks all the way to the end of his life by the wildly unmerited gift of a Catholic priest.  The 2012 film adaptation starring Hugh Jackman captures this scene really well.  Take a look. 

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The Hard Truth

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In this second-to-last part of our series, Hard to Love, we finally have to come face-to-face with a hard truth. I said last week that the goal of this series is twofold: To help us understand how to love the hard to love people in our lives, and to give us the motivation of the wonder of God’s own love for us to give us some impetus for loving them. We’ve taken care of the first part. In these final two installments we’re going to tackle the second. But, before we can marvel in wonder at the love of God, we have to understand why it’s so wonderful. That’s not so easy. But, it’s absolutely essential. So, take a deep breath, and keep reading. You won’t want to miss this because it’ll make next week even better.

The Hard Truth

Have you ever heard of “face-palming”?  It’s typically used as a humorous expression of shock or exasperation at something that strikes you as surprising or, more often, idiotic.  Just so we’re all on the same page here, for a proper face-palming you start with your hand open wide.  You then bring your hand up and your forehead down simultaneously such that your palm smacks audibly on your forehead.  This is followed by slowly moving your hand down the rest of your face as if wiping something off of it.  The expression has become commonplace enough in our culture that there is a face-palm emoji, and if you were to do a YouTube search for “face-palming,” you could actually find quite a few entries.  I know this because I did it…and found this little gem from the movie Naked Gun 33 1/3. 

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