Lessons from marriage

When they said marriage could be likened to the relationship between God and His church, I used to wonder, what's the correlation?! I mean, how does one compare such totally different entities? But did I get the answer faster than I thought? Sure!

Many times, even as a human being, I wonder how God keeps from waving His hand, note, hand o, over the church and just sweep her off. Considering all that has crept into her and all that's happening, how does He still stand her? Ok, how does a spouse stand the partner that keeps rubbing them in all the wrong ways?  You get to a point you wish you could just get them out of your life, innit? And some actually part but in my short experience in the relationship between Christ and His church, He's never once threatened her with a divorce, not to talk of actually carrying it out. Yes, He draws her back in sometimes painful ways, but He loves her still.

Is a nag loveable? That person that keeps going like never ending rain on a day you really need sunshine - you know how annoying that is? Sometimes you wish you could just put a stopper in their mouths and have peace. God must feel that way constantly, I think - from my human perspective. How He would have wanted to just shut out the cries and nags of the Israelites in the wilderness. How He would want to just spread a tarpaulin between heaven and earth so that the constant complaints and blame heaping of His bride doesn't get to Him, but no, He keeps listening to her and answering her requests even! Who does that? Only God.

And when that person you love strays? They just wander off. Spending most of their time with friends, at work, in clubs, with other people or even shut up in themselves. The harrowing loneliness that accompanies that is best imagined. How many times has the church strayed away from her first and only love? Leaving her Groom 'in the cold', waiting and anticipating her return? And food - yeah. This especially for the ladies. How does it feel when your man won't eat your food cuz he's angry? All those hours in the kitchen gone to waste! Pause a while and consider how God feels when the food He's taken time to make His bride, His word, is blatantly rejected by her. Oh how the heart of the Lover of all time must bleed at such times. His bride abandons the well prepared food He has made for her to go after fast food that at best satisfies for a few hours.

Oh, and that 'ultimate marital sin'? Infidelity? When you catch the one you love drinking from another's cistern. Ouch! It hurts, it hurts real bad. Some never get over it but have you ever stopped to consider the romance of the church with other things? Dirty, filthy, nauseating relationships with the world? And she arises from that bed of adultery, comes back and with open arms and a warm hug, He still takes her back.

Now I understand. Now the picture is clear. For a marriage to work right, both parties have got to be able to look through God's eyes. How else can one bear and forgive these and many more if not by looking through His eyes? Those times when you feel like beating your spouse to a pulp, whether or not you can do it, consider how much of that you have deserved and more, in the past and even in the present, yet, God has always given you as many chances as it has required. Then, you'll realize that person isn't the devil and they can be better if you would only love as God does.

These, are some of the lessons I've learned of God through marriage.

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