Hello All,
I just had the
opportunity to meet some interesting people and I thought I would tell you
about it. I was out at the beach doing some praying and fasting…
...yea, right.
Actually, I was lying
in the sun after spending the morning writing and praying in the Holy Ghost (that’s
true).
As I was walking back
from the beach, I passed two elderly people, each in a wheelchair looking out
over the ocean. They both were in their chairs, both wearing some cute bright
yellow golf hat, with some initials of something. They weren’t saying much. It
just seemed they were enjoying their moment with each other. Maybe it was so
beautiful here, and it is, that there was just nothing to say.
I walked passed them
and just couldn’t stop thinking what it would be like to pass into eternity
without knowing Christ. Looking at their ages, that day is probably coming soon
for them. So I felt impressed to go over and visit with them. I simply asked
them if I could pray and they responded that they could always use prayer.
Trying to stop making a short story long, I found out they already knew the
Lord and were enjoying a vacation with their son. He owned a number of
companies and liked to travel the world. He also acted for a while and said we
could see him in Home Alone 2, and other small parts in movies and soap operas.
So he brought his parents on this trip with him to enjoy another part of the
world.
We did pray together
for them and family members to come and know the Lord. This is all cool and
stuff, but what really struck me, and why I am writing this lesson, was finding
out how long they had been married…
Sixty
seven years!
Think of it…getting
close to ¾ a century being married to the same person.
If there is anything I
have learned, if you find someone who is really successful at something, pick
their brain and find out how they did it. What could these two possibly know or
believe that would cause them to stay together for so long? How is it that they
can be in such love with each other? Of course the guy, we will call him Bill,
was pretty quiet. He was comfortable letting his wife do all the talking. We’ll
call her Gladys. Yet you could see when they looked at each other, their care
for each other was genuine and true.
So I asked, “If there was
one thing you would say was the secret to making it…” Their answer was simple
and to the point.
“Communicate…and tell
the truth.”
From there we talked
about how they learned to work that out between them. I shared a number of
instances that I have experienced in my own marriage. And after being in the
ministry almost twenty years as of this writing, some things I’ve noticed and
learned myself.
They talked about
meeting each other in high school and growing up through the end of the
depression together. We talked about how they knew there was no other way to
make it if you didn’t work together.
Survival
did not allow you the luxury of selfishness.
I talked about how I’ve
seen that when trials hit, how easy it is for married couples to turn on the
very one who is sent to work with the other to be better. The spouses complete
one another to be stronger together than apart. If we do not understand that,
adversity will turn us against each other, and somehow the real enemy, whether
it be finances, health, economy…gets hidden and we go after the very one that
is there to make us strong.
I think that a marriage
is just like all the other living creations he makes. He starts with a seed.
But there is no way you can possibly see what is in the seed with all its glory
unless you give it not just water, earth, and all the other stuff you think it
needs. There is one commodity we don’t consider much but there really is one
thing that can bring that seed to its greatest beauty and all that it was
designed to be…even with all the other ingredients in perfect measure…
Time.
The ground and the rain
and the sun can be in perfect measure, but without time, you will get nothing
from the seed. And if you make judgment too early in time, you will abort
before the real treasure is revealed.
We live in a culture of
rush, rush, rush. We want results now and we think we are advanced for it.
Bill, Gladys, and I talked about how the younger generation is trying to have
everything their parents had years sooner without paying the same price and
going through what it takes to have maturity and wisdom. We have microwave food
that cooks a meal in a minute that took an hour just a few years ago. We don’t
need to wash dishes anymore since these foods come in containers we just toss
out when we are through.
And we have taken the
same mentality into the one thing that I believe God has given us to
demonstrate the foundation of His entire kingdom…unconditional love and
commitment to the end through marriage.
I asked the Lord about
this one time. Think of it. Some men that the bible esteems very highly had
more than one wife. Yes that means they were having sex with lots of different
women and having lots of kids while they were at it. I mean…what does it really
harm to have sex with all those people anyway. It’s just a physical act, and
we’re only human anyway, and if it feels good…
I believe that what He
shared in my heart is that when He established the concept of marriage, He was
giving us a living demonstration of heaven and how the principle of commitment
to the end governs His kingdom. Even when Adam and Eve sinned, at the very
moment of confrontation with them and the serpent, He promised a deliverer. He
was the immediate answer to an eternal problem. The very creation that was a
mirror of His own image had just annihilated His plan for mankind to rule the
earth…and yet He immediately committed Himself to providing a redeemer. A
promise that He would stay with them till the end; and literally give His life
to fulfill.
Marriage is supposed to
be a demonstration to ourselves and the world that another human being, no
matter what the price, is worth sticking with in all the seasons. And to those
who are able to do this through the lengths of that thing we talked about
earlier…time….they will taste and experience a part of heaven that is reserved
only for those who allow the seed of marriage and commitment to grow to its
fruition.
What will you be
thinking about with your spouse of 50, 60, 70 plus years? How about all that
you conquered together, and lost together. Will you be considering what you
will leave on the earth or more importantly, what you will take to heaven?
Gold, riches, souls…
…or the one sitting
next to you in the wheelchair looking out over the waves rolling in and out,
knowing you did it together. And now you get to face the last hurdle together
confident it will be fine because it’s always ended fine through the
years…going home together to be with the Lord.
Something to think about...
PJ
PS: I just passed this woman on the way from breakfast
(this is the next day) as she was getting ready to head to the airport. I told
her that I used here and her husband as a teaching example in our newsletter.
Her eyes lit up and she said she would pray that someone gets blessed from her
story.
This is what it is all about
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