After the Wedding

After the Wedding

At a recent wedding I was able to deliver a message to the bride and groom of eternal significance, not only to the subject of marriage, but also to every relationship we encounter along the path of life itself. Here it is:

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.                        (1 Corinthians 13:13 – NASB)

Everyone agrees that love is the greatest and that it is the secret to the mystery of life.

A classic song from the past expresses it this way:

Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life
At last, I’ve found you.
Ah! At last I know the secret of it all.
For the longing, seeking, striving, waiting, yearning,
The burning hopes,
The joy and idle tears that fall.

For ’tis love and love alone,
The world is seeking.
And ’tis love and love alone,
That can repay.
‘Tis the answer, ’tis the end and all of living,
For it is love alone that rules for ever more.

The thing is, while everyone seems to agree love is the answer, no one seems to know exactly how to put this love into motion; very few people, except our Lord, seem to know how to make it work in everyday life, and in marriage in particular.

To the wise among us it is a day-by-day learning experience that it takes a lot of prayer, commitment, and personal sacrifice to achieve.

What I am sharing with you is a blend of what I have learned from Scripture, and the nitty-gritty world of personal experience. I am going to use the word “LOVE” to launch each of the points I want to impress upon you.

First, the letter “L” stands for:

LISTEN

You have to learn to listen to each other, and I don’t mean listening always has to do with words.

Sometimes, the husband you will find himself thinking, I wish she would just tell me what the problem is. Then I could actually start dealing with it, but she just clams up and expects me to guess what the matter is.

Meanwhile she will be thinking: If he was sensitive to my needs, I wouldn’t have to tell him what is wrong. If he truly loved me he would have been able to read the signs and the hints I have been giving him for over a week. I’m not going to tell him if he is going to be that insensitive.

The truth is you have to learn to listen with your heart; you will be able to read each other’s expressions and body language. Your determination to love one another will enable you to detect your partner’s unstated needs. Of course there are times you will have to talk; you will have to communicate with each other to resolve issues before they build into something too big to deal with.  It is not however, all bout talking; it is also about trying to understand the sensitivities, weaknesses, strengths and vulnerabilities of your partner.

The Letter “O” stands for

OWING

In other words you need to recognize the debt you owe to each other.

You will always be in debt to each other and to the Lord.

What you owe to your wife is what the apostle Paul declared in his letter to the Ephesians:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:25-27 – NASB)

As a wife you will always owe love and respect to your husband. He will not always measure up, and at times you will think he does not deserve it. As your husband, however, he deserves to be respected as the man God brought into your life, and as the man you prayed for so long for God to give you.

As a husband you owe your wife tenderness, and a sensitivity to her needs.

In a broader sense, we are are all debt to every member of the human family. As followers of Christ we owe the Gospel to every person we encounter, as the apostle Paul declared to the Romans:

I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise. ¹⁵ So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.              (Romans 1:14-15 – AKJV)

Third, the letter “V” stands for:

VALUE

Each of you is of such great value to God, Christ was willing to give His life for you.

A Van Gough painting once sold for $40 million pounds. I would not pay ten cents for one of his paintings. The point is, what is the value of anything? People and things are worth what someone is willing to pay for them.

Each of you is worth so much to God, He was willing to pay the life of His own Son for you. If you hurt your wife in any way you are in reality hurting the heart of God; and every act of love you bestow upon her, you are bestowing an act of love upon God Himself.

Your husband is worth so much to God, He was willing to pay the life of His own Son for him. If you, as his wife, hurt him in any way you are in reality hurting the heart of God; and every act of love you bestow upon him, you are bestowing an act of love upon God Himself.

Finally, the Letter “E” stands for

EXPECTATION

Your expectations of each other have to be realistic.

As a wife, you cannot expect your husband to fulfil all your needs and desires. He will be able to fulfil some of them, but not all of them. Only Christ can do that. The same goes for you, as a husband God created marriage, and many of your needs and desires will be met in each other, but not all of them.

If you are coming into this marriage expecting your partner to satisfy all your needs, you will be disappointed.

If, however, you are entering this unions already satisfied in Christ, and can say, “All my expectations are in Him,” you are in for a wonderful life together.

The Practice of Love

© Monday 11th January 2016 – by Christopher Shennan)

But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.                        (1 Corinthians 13:13 – NASB)

We all know love is the answer

To all of the problems of life;

Few know the secret to make it

Work well between husband and wife.

When the glow of first love passes.

And the daily grind has arrived,

Few know how to stir love’s passion,

Or make their relationship thrive.

They think it’s all about feelings,

That change like the waves of the sea,

But it’s more about making decisions:

Thinking more about “you” than “me.”

It’s about caring for her needs;

About offering him due praise –

About recognizing value –

Knowing that tenderness still pays.

The feelings? They will surely come

After the decisions are made;

After the selfless giving, and

After the sacrifice is laid.

Please visit My website: www.christophershennan.ca
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Ah Two Weddings by Susan Murtaugh. Copyright. Used under the CC BY ND 2.0 license: please note the Disclaimer at the previous link. No changes were made to this photograph, except for downloading the photo in a size that was possibly different than the original photo.

Dried up Fountains

Dried up Fountains

I grew up on a gold mine in South Africa, with the yellow “mine dumps” outlined against the sky. The “dumps” were made up of the sand left after the processing of ore to extract the gold. Since cyanide was used in the gold extraction, the rain run-off into the lake below our “dump” (we called them dams) made the water decidedly undrinkable.

So, while we used the lake for canoeing and general relaxation (there was a trailer park along its shores), drinking its water was definitely not an option. No fish in those waters either.

We had two choices: either to drink the purified water provided by the town, or foolishly try to survive on the polluted lake water.

Spiritually speaking, we also have two choices:  We can either try to find satisfaction with man-made solutions to life’s mysteries, or go to the very source of life itself – God.

People in Jeremiah’s day had the same to choices, and the made the wrong choice; they turned away from the only One Who could fulfil their every longing and took refuge in their own efforts.

“For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns
That can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13 – NASB)

You and I may not have dug any leaky cisterns today, but many of us have left God out of our lives. We think we can make it on our own. We imagine if we made more money, got a better job, became more successful, or pursued a life of fam – we would be able to fill that deep emptiness within us.

So what if we gained all those things? We would still be like a broken fountain that is unable to satisfy our thirst.

Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”  (John 4:13-14 – NASB)

Fountain of Living Waters

(© 9^th September 2015 – by Christopher Shennan)

Many try to fill their longings;

Their hunger for peace and true joy,

With the things that earth has fashioned,

And the arts the most men employ.

But the truth, quite plain and simple,

Is that nothing can fill the void

That sin has created in us,

But what Christ on the Cross employed.

He alone can fill your longings,

And bring the peace that will not end;

He alone has endless measures,

That your poor, broken heart, will mend.

Christ is the Fountain of Waters;

Living, and abundant, and free.

Christ fulfilled all of my longings –

He did it by dying for me.

Please visit My website: www.christophershennan.ca
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Picture by Joanne Shennan – Used with permission)

Loneliness – The Silent Agony

Loneliness – The Silent Agony

Look to the right and see; For there is no one who regards me;
There is no escape for me;
No one cares for my soul. (Psalm 142:4 – NASB)

Loneliness is a strange and subtle beast; it can afflict a soul in a crowd, in isolation, and even in a close family setting.  It is adaptable to every situation and preys on the weak and the strong. We can feel isolated physically, socially, professionally, psychologically and morally.

Loneliness is a silent agony – no one hears our cry – we suffer it inwardly, the anguish only evident to ourselves. It is also invisible to all but a few perceptive souls who can recognize the symptoms and come alongside to offer aid.

God has provided many natural remedies for loneliness.

True friendship with either of the sexes, or in a group setting can ease the burden of loneliness. A social life, church fellowship and family gatherings can keep loneliness at bay

Marriage is part of God’s natural order. It is designed to provide fulfilment on many levels. If it is harmonious and loving there are few things that can equal it for its power to bring comfort and keep loneliness away. When one spouse dies, however, loneliness can rush in like an invading force. My own father was such an attentive husband that, when he died, my mother survived him by only a couple of years. She no longer knew how to live alone.

Ambition, or a Calling, can provide purpose a sense of destiny; it will motivate us toward some noble effort that will occupy, for a time, the space usually claimed by loneliness.

I could go on to list other temporal means to deal with loneliness but I think you get my drift: there are means and devices that can assuage, for a time, the plague of loneliness.

To pour all your life into these things, however, in the mistaken belief they will fully satisfy the soul is a fantasy. It is a mirage that disappears the moment you think you have found it.

As real as these temporal blessings can be, they cannot address the cause of loneliness, which is the departure of the soul from God. When sin entered the world it separated the human family from God and created and empty space in the soul that was intended for God alone.

Blaise Pascal said: There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

Jesus said:

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 – NASB)

Coming to God through Jesus Christ is the only permanent answer to loneliness. He alone gives meaning to all the other healing balms God has given us.

Loneliness

© Saturday 4^th April 2015 – by Christopher Shennan

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28 – NASB)

I’ve known a silent agony

That torments while staying hidden;

It plays a sad tune of mourning,

Though it’s never been bidden.

What is this plague?

It’s loneliness.

It plays its tune even in a crowd,

Or in a lonely room – alone;

Steals the joy of being alive –

Makes the heart heavy – like a stone.

It’s loneliness.

This plague afflicts the human race

And few have discovered its cure;

They’ve unearthed many counterfeits,

But nothing that is true and pure.

It’s loneliness.

So what is loneliness, my friend?
What is it at its very core?

Unfulfilled longing after God;

Unless satisfied – it is sore!

It’s loneliness.

A wise man said there’s a vacuum

In the human soul shaped like God;

Unless you invite Him back in,

It’s a lonely path you’ll have trod.

It’s loneliness.

So choose now, my friend, to seek Him;

Make Him your joy and crown;

He’ll send your loneliness packing –

Not a thing will then get you down.

Not Loneliness.

Please visit My website: http://www.christophershennan.ca
My blog: https://christophershennan.wordpress.com/
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Loneliness by David Hodgson. Copyright. Used under the CC BY 2.0 license; please note the Disclaimer at this site. We made no changes to this photo.