Forgive my horrible Adobe Illustrator skills . . . I’m just learning and this is what I could come up with during my lunch break:
This is what typical marriages look like . . . I know, I had one of them. There are several problems . . . the first is the inward focus on the other person for being happy. The problem is we are all human (Whew! Glad for that one!) and we will all fail. It’s a fact of life, and if you are looking to your spouse to always be at 100% . . . it’s a sure fire way to be disappointed. Like wise on a see saw you both have to be working to make it balance . . . the 50/50 issue. Nobody will know exactly what the end goal is, so it’s hard to say if you are going your 50% and your mate is doing their 50%. That’s another sure fire way to be disappointed – 100% of the time at some point or another.
(Ok . . . I warned you these weren’t great images.) This is what a marriage should reflect . . . you can hear it in the words of many poets . . . expressing two hearts beating as one . . . looking together in the same direction. I know I’m not perfect, and my wife knows she’s not perfect. Together we are just two imperfect people (and yea, we are human!) but we are always focusing on God and him as our center point in our life. Together that means we will both always be focused on the same thing, and as we go up on that little diagram, we are always moving closer together as a couple.
Are we always getting closer? No, sometimes we have struggles. Thankfully we know we aren’t alone . . . we know others have had those same struggles.
2 Samuel 11 (New International Version)
1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her.
What happened to this man? . . . a man who earlier was quoted as:
1 Samuel 13 (New International Version)
“…the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him ruler of his people…”