Committments

I recently had an epiphany of sorts about marriage. Probably something the rest of the world knows but I’m slow sometimes. In the day to day stresses and ups and downs of life, parenting and ministry I forget that my true marital commitment is to Dave. The person Dave. Not some ideal of marriage, not primarily to the call we share to the city and building the Kingdom, not even to the children God has blessed us with. Years ago when we took our vows I vowed to be faithful to him in sickness, health, poverty, wealth, etc. This means that I may not be happy with choices he makes or moods he is in or where life has brought us. And I’ll bet there are days when it is the same for him. But we have a commitment to each other so I may change and he may change and we work on making it work. A commitment to a person, not just a relationship or institution. People are tricky, messy and unpredictable.

Because the other side of it is that there are days when things just click. When I think I can’t ever love someone an ounce more and I feel so amazingly blessed that someone would put up with me 24/7 for the rest of his life. When he knows me so well it’s eerie and we look ahead with hope. These things sustain the commitment we made and refresh our love for each other. In the good times I remember how amazing marriage is and I’m grateful for sticking out the tough times because ultimately Dave is a better husband than I could have designed before I really understood what marriage entails.

So this got me thinking about my relationship with God. Since Dave and I are called to reflect this beautiful love my misunderstanding at times damages my relationship with God. My biggest weakness here is seeing God as a cause. I’ve always wanted to “change the world” and at 17, one of the things that attracted me to the gospel was this sense of being part of something bigger. Seeing that I was too small to save the world and in fact needed saving myself. This was a calling worth surrendering everything to. This God cared for the weak, saw the plight of the poor, held the whole broken earth in His hands – this was a God I could serve.

And to the best if my abilities, time and treasure I’ve tried to. But here’s the rub – serving God doesn’t always feel like saving the world or being part of some big, grand cause. Sometimes the sacrifices feel too great and the path seems winding and foggy and not at all like doing something exciting and redeeming. Sometimes it’s drudgery, exhaustion and frustration. Sometimes it feels scary and uncertain and not at all what I expected when I started on this path.
So I find myself getting back to the heart of what it means to follow God. To follow God when I am not happy with where He’s brought me in life and not happy with His silence or the way He is answering my prayers. It’s significantly different than marriage because He is perfect and Dave, for all his wonderfulness, isn’t. But my relationship with God is similarly broken and in need of a reminder that when I gave my life over to Jesus 19 years ago this month it wasn’t to a cause or institution, it was to a Person. A kind, loving, sovereign God who sees a big picture I don’t see. A God who wants to give me life abundant and calls me friend. A God who cares less what I accomplish to save the world and more that I just keep loving Him and pointing others to Him in my own broken way. This is a God to stick with. How thankful I am for His love.