Pyramid

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25, ESV).

It had not been long since he had learned his diagnosis of hepatocellular cancer. And even more recently, he had accepted Christ as his savior. He was in for his check up and was doing well; his tumor was better. “I thank the Lord for that,” he said. After a pause he looked up at his wife and added, “I got her to go to church with me.” “That’s great,” I replied. “You need to go through this together with the Lord.” “You’re right,” he said. “Want to build that pyramid with God at the top, each of us connected to Him and to each other.”

Amazing insight for one newly brought to the Lord. Certainly, I love my wife—love her more each year of marriage. But love should be action more than feeling and sometimes I don’t act my love as well as I should. I told my son and his fiancée at their rehearsal dinner, “May you wake up each morning and tell each other, ‘I love you more than me.’” I sincerely try to practice those words with my own spouse, though often I fail. What I am truly still trying to learn is how we might bind our relationship together with God, like the pyramid my patient mentions. We have a time of Bible reading and prayer together each evening, but it took me a long time to get there with our work and children distractions. A few years ago I made the discovery that it is my job to help my spouse seek her ministry for God as importantly as I seek my own. All my life I have been charging to complete God’s calling for me while letting my spouse find hers on her own. Now I truly understand that I must be deliberate and sacrificial in moving her toward God’s plan for her work in this world, even if it conflicts with my own. Ideally, we will come to the place where God’s work for her and His work for me fit perfectly together and become one, as we are one. Then we might truly understand the pyramid my patient was talking about with his profoundly deep, recent faith.

Dear Father,
Let me love her even more and love her with you.
Amen