"'Haven't you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator 'made them
male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh?' So they
are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no
one separate.'" (Matt 19:4-6, NIV2)
Sadly, there is no longer any sanctity in marriage. Married? It doesn't matter.
Divorce for greener grass. As marriages fail, many lose their way from their
Heavenly Father. It doesn't have to be like this!
I am quite puzzled about how our commitments can be so easily broken. One of my
colleagues hired a contractor to enlarge her garage so that she could use it to
park her new motorhome. The contractor promised it would be finished within two
months. Four months later, he had not started the project. No problem! He would
finish it by next summer!
After hearing my colleague's story, who in their right mind would want to hire
this guy?
The same is true with marriage. Why would anyone break their lifetime
commitment? No wonder most people do what they want to do, for commitment has no
more honor in our society.
How would we feel if our Heavenly Father decided not to follow through with his
commitments? Would we applaud? There is no way He would ever do that, for He
loves us way too much. Love will always keep commitments, and marriage is no
different: till death do we part.
A commitment is a commitment. If a commitment is broken, it was never a
commitment in the first place. Breaking it shows that we are fickle, and that no
one can trust us.
Marriage should be compared to our plumber. A few years ago, we had a sump pump
that broke. When we called a certain service, they replaced it with another sump
pump for a hefty price without checking into the cause of our problems. Two
weeks later it was broken as well, and they wouldn't honor the warranty. We were
back to square one.
Someone recommended a plumber. We called him and he came within the hour.
Immediately he recognized that a sump pump should not break within 2 weeks.
Something was wrong. He checked everything and eventually he started to dig in
our front yard. He found that a pipe was broken, thus hindering the sump pump
from doing its job. He fixed the problem and replaced our broken sump pump.
Since then the sump pump has worked perfectly well, and now, any time we need
his help, he comes and advices us. He has never led us astray, and he is always
honest. We trust him completely. Unlike the first plumbing service, he stands by
his commitment. After all a commitment is a commitment!
Our commitment towards our spouse can be severely tested when inlaws add their
"advice"
to the marriage. Advice can be quite good, but at times it can also be quite
bad. Once married, a wife and husband are one. In other words your spouse should
always be at the forefront, even over and above your parents. It's true that we
need to respect our parents, but at the same time, next to God, we must favor
our spouse above everything else.
By the way, I have a used sump pump. I can offer it to you for a good price!
Rob Chaffart
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