Have Yourself Committed

 ^“Therefore a man will leave his father and his mother, and will join with his wife, and they will be one flesh.” Genesis 2:24

They will be together from that point on?  Oh my goodness!  That could be a long time.  And with God’s help, it will be!  That is the hope of most couples as they walk down the aisle to say their “I Do’s”.  Of course there are a few exceptions, but we’re not talking about those today. 

Most of you know that I married Pastor Arland just a few years ago AND that both of us are on our second marriage.  So, you may be thinking, “What makes Ms. Barbara think that she is an expert on marriage?”  I’ll tell you.  Two things make me an expert:

·        My commitment to living my life according to godly principles and

·        My commitment to my marriage

The expert in me says that you can’t have a successful marriage unless both parties are willing to sign up to the highest level of commitment.  You have to understand that love is not that infatuated feeling that you have when you first get together. Love is the choice to be there through the sometimes harsh realities of life to encourage and support one another.  Love is when you make the decision to commit to an imperfect being.  Commitment makes the difference.

In the scripture above, it says a man will leave his parents and join his wife.  In another translation, it says that he adheres closely to, sticks to, clings to, and remains faithful to his wife.  I like that because he sounds like a man who has made a commitment to his marriage.   If you didn’t know it, commitment will sometimes cause you to do things that you might not otherwise do.  It will cause you to dig in and hold on when others might give up.  Commitment will cause you to pay attention to things that others may not notice.  Commitment will cause you to bring little things out into the open so they don’t fester into big ugly things.   Commitment will make it compulsory for you to find out about past hurts and disappointments, so that you can avoid being the source of more of the same in the future. 

Because Pastor Arland and I married at a more mature age, and both had difficult first marriages, we knew exactly what we were looking for in mates.  Thank God, we wanted the same thing.  We wanted mates whose identify was found first in Christ, and would commit to do whatever it took to serve God and each other.  After bad practice marriages, we both just wanted some peace.  I call them ‘practice’ marriages because the experiences we had during those times really did help prepare us to appreciate each other in this marriage.  I seriously doubt we would have been ready for each other had we met without enduring the experiences of our past. 

Ecclesiastes 4:12 says that “A three-fold rope is not easily broken”.  In the rope of our marriage, the folds are Pastor Arland and me, with the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are committed to Him and He helps bind us together.  Inviting Christ into our marriage strengthened the rope of commitment beyond anything we could have done on our own.  Get yourself some commitment insurance, invite Him into your marriage today.