CP 237 A promise to be kept.

CP 237 A Promise to be Kept…

Thinking about marriage 9.

Hi friends… This week’s marriage snippet is a continuation of last week’s post. Remember Dr/Pastor Wangerin’s insistence? Marriage begins with the vow! Here is what he writes next…

“A promise made, a promise witnessed, a promise heard, remembered, and trusted – this is the groundwork of marriage. Not emotions. No, not even love. Not physical desires or personal needs or sexuality. Not the practical fact of living together. Not even the piercing foresight or some peculiar miracle of All-seeing God. Rather, a promise, a vow, makes the marriage.

“I promise you my faithfulness, until death parts us.”

Here is a marvellous work, performed by those who are made in the image of God – for we create, in this promise, a new thing, a changeless stability in an ever-changing world. We do the thing that God does, establishing a covenant with another human being: we ask faith in our faithfulness to that covenant. We transfigure the relationship thereafter, transfiguring ourselves, for we shape our behaviours by the covenant. A new ethic has begun for each of us. We have called forth a spiritual house in which each of us may dwell securely. Whether we know it or not, it is a divine thing we do, and it is holy!” (Love it, love it, love it. Exclamation mark and italics mine).

Fred’s comment… I can’t tell you how much Mr Wangerin’s truth inspires me. And it puts me in mind of another bit of inspired marriage thought from the pen of Lewis Smedes. Read it! Enjoy! Be encouraged! Be challenged! Above all, be faithful!

Read on…

“Keeping Promises” (Lewis Smedes The power of promises)

“Yes, somewhere people still make and keep promises. They choose not to quit when the going gets rough because they promised once to see it through. They stick to lost causes. They hold on to a love grown cold. They stay with people who have become pains in the neck. They still dare to make promises and care enough to keep the promises they make.

I want to say to you that if you have a ship you will not desert, if you have people you will not forsake, if you have causes you will not abandon, then you are like God.

What a marvellous thing a promise is!  When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable; she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay.

When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be.  With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty. (Amen, Amen, Amen. Fred)

When a person makes a promise, she stakes a claim on her personal freedom and power. When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future.”

Right on the money is Mr Smedes!

Have a blessed week.

Fred