Something I Read Someplace

...along with my accompanying commentary (in italics)

"So I end with the reminder that marriage is not mainly about staying in love. It's about covenant keeping. And the main reason it is about covenant keeping is that God designed the relationship between a husband and his wife to represent the relationship between Christ and the church."

Well, I think what she’s getting at here is the notion that “Happily ever after” doesn’t mean “deliriously happy every moment of every day”. Brings to mind G.K. Chesterton’s great quote about the prince and princess living happily ever after…even though they likely occasionally threw dishes at each other. He also said something else, something or other about marriage being a perpetual crisis supported by a foundation of comfort. Possibly one of the few bright observations I ever made during my marriage was the confession, “Here’s the thing – I love you even when I don’t like you one little, flippin’ bit.” The commitment’s the thing, the faithfulness even during the “or worse” parts.

"This is the deepest meaning of marriage. And that is why ultimately the roles of headship and submission are so important. If our marriages are going to tell the truth about Christ and his church, we cannot be indifferent to the meaning of headship and submission."

We probably don’t think about this enough. In fact, I’m sure we don’t, and that goes a long way toward explaining the sorry state of marriages these days. It is really – if you do stop and really think about it – quite an incredible miracle that God managed to make it so that the fundamental relationship between man and woman is, indeed, a reflection of the fundamental relationship between God and mankind.

"And let it not go without saying that God's purpose for the church-and for the Christian wife who represents it-is her everlasting holy joy. Christ died for them to bring that about."

I could scribble ten more pages just on this bit alone. But I’m just going to select a couple of things to mention. First, one of the (ten thousand) things that drives me absolutely up the flippin’ wall is the failure of men to understand this bit at all. If you’ve got half a brain (unfortunately, most men don’t), then it ought to be crystal, blinding clear to you that if a woman submits herself to you, she’s submitting herself, ultimately, to your care. You’re responsible for her, in the same way that Christ accepts that “willing to die for” responsibility for the Church. She is trusting you in the same way that you’re supposed to trust God – that is, she’s taking the incredibly daring step of having faith that if she listens to you, then she will be wonderfully all right. And that trust places on you a responsibility that, frankly, ought to frighten the hell out of you, time to time. Yes, it’s great to have a live-in cocktail waitress (at least, I know I enjoy it), but that’s not what it’s bloody about. It’s about rescuing the princess from the dragon – the “dragon”, in this instance, being all the myriad horrors of this life. John Eldredge wrote something that I hope I never forget – “Every man needs an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. And every woman needs a dream to share, and a prince to rescue her.” And if you can’t understand that that is an infinitely more important, fulfilling, and downright happy-making notion than just the idea of getting your cock sucked on a regular basis…well, you’re a Goddamned fool.

my not-so-humble opinion,
Jack