A Collaborative Effort
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. Ephesians 5:25-30
As I mentioned in prior devotion, I have been doing special prayers each week for my wife. In that time, I focus on not only what her needs are but also that God and she have a closer bond. That she knows how God delights in her as I do. This brought me to think of how our marriage life is. We are closer than ever now, and I look forward to spending the rest of my life with her. This is where I also realize my responsibility to her. As two become one, my duty is to lead as God would and to love as Jesus would. As a husband, we tend to focus on one or the other. But that does not, as they say, quite cut the mustard. We are to be leaders and lovers because if we do it right, there is no conflict with either God or her. It becomes a perfect collaborative effort.
Honoring God through our relationships is a must in our walk of faith. While today’s verses focus on marriage and its special and unique bond, it is essential that we view all our relationship through a similar and healthy lens. For example, think of a new friend you have met. Obviously, we would not treat them similarly to a spouse, but in building that relationship, we espouse similar values on them such as respect, communication, building trust, empathy, and other things that we would to our spouse. This is not to say we need to change our persona. After all, God has made us unique as David wrote, “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” (Psalm 139:14) Paul goes a step further in noting that in spite how different we are, we are one body saying, “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12) Yet spiritual growth requires God to transform us as written in Ezekiel 36:26 where it says, “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.” Healthy relationships are a key indicator of how close we are to God. Like the Lord’s prayer, we forgive as God forgives us. We are giving to those as God has provided for us. We are seeing others ‘without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish’ with a dash of wisdom. As such, this does not mean trusting your house note with a person with a gambling addiction. It does mean to be supportive of them to help them through their addiction not just by words but also by action.
Our relationships with others are one of the most impactful ways we can bring awareness to God’s goodness. Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” In as much as spouses are to love each other, we are to love others as part of the Greatest Commandment. We cannot be children of God without making effort to build strong relationships with each other. Let’s not forget that. How can your relationships better represent that which you have with God? What steps will you take to build a Godlier relationship with your significant other? My prayer is we look to God to perfect our relationships in what is a collaborative effort. Amen.