Saturday, September 22nd was a rough day for us. Jill and I went to a marriage conference at a local church to hear Gary Thomas speak. Gary is an author and frequent guest on FamilyLife Today. He’s written many books geared toward moving us closer to Christ. Sacred Marriage was the topic of this seminar. Gary challenged us to consider this question: “What if God designed marriage to make us holymore than to make us happy?”

It was a difficult day because I got offended at something Jill said to me and allowed pride to fill my heart. Instead of communicating with her, I withdrew. We sat next to each other, but we were miles apart. The wall between us thick, cold and high. I’m sure we were a sight to see for those around us.

You see, I’m a hopeless romantic. I read books on marriage and listen to programs on marriage all the time. I have a picture in my mind of what my marriage should look like. The problem with this is that this image is not reality. It’s what I call a phantom. And when I begin to compare reality to this phantom, the phantom wins every time.

Gary Thomas referred to this in his seminar. He talks about how we want the perfect marriage with all the romance and excitement of Hollywood. That’s just not how marriage is designed to function. God has designed marriage in sucha way that all of our faults and flaws are revealed most every day so that we’ll see where we need to change to become more like Christ. My life was more simple when I was single because I normally got what I wanted. Marriage doesn’t accommodate to my wishes so easily. In fact, being married challenges me to “die to self” multiple times every day. Saturday was no exception…I simply made the wrong choice and chose to live to please my flesh. I was wrong!

Too many couples get married having wrong expectations. Romance is a wonderful thing and should be a part of every marriage. But to have this as the goal of marriage is not good. We need to enter marriage with the idea of serving our spouse. We need to build a life-long “conversation” with our mate and allowthe trials of life to drive us closer to each other as we grow our committed love. We need to see our mate as our friend, not our enemy.

Satan is crafty and deceptive. He’ll make you think your mate is out to get you and is saying things just to be mean. THAT is rarely the case. Your spouse loves you and wants the best for you. You and I need to stop believing the lies of our real Enemy and start believing the Truth about our mate.

God finally broke through my pride, though it was after the seminar. Jill and I had a great talk and began working through the issue of that morning. As hard as it was, Saturday may have been a turning point in our marriage. I learned that romance is an important ingredient in a healthy marriage, but it shouldn’t be the focus or barometer. I was reminded that Jill is NOT my enemy and that I need to hear what she is saying, process it through the correct “filter” and then respond in a Christ-like way. Jill is a gift to me from God. I want to love, honor and cherish her as we build our marriage on the hope found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything less will simply leave me… hopelessly romantic.

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