Pastor’s Corner: “Three Strands”
Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) – 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Today Allison and I are celebrating 27 years of marriage! As I think about the years we have been together and everything we have faced, I am truly thankful for my wife and the gift she is from God. While we have been blessed more that we deserve, some years have been more challenging than others. For our relationships to improve, it’s important we learn the lessons God is trying to teach us. We’ve had to learn a few lessons many times over! Making mistakes is a given, but what we do with those mistakes, and whether we learn from them, helps determine whether we grow closer or further apart.
Like many couples, Ally and I are very different from one another. Those differences can bring quite the adventure — and perhaps some adversity, too. But the tension-causing differences can become blessings in disguise where we learn to complement one another. Each of us, with our differences, reflect different dimensions of God’s character. Another lesson I’ve discovered is I can be selfish and married, but I cannot be selfish and happily married. Marriage is one way God interrupts our preoccupation with ourselves. As we grow as a couple, I have to focus on meeting my wife’s needs. Because when I focus on getting my needs met, I end up swimming upstream, against the current.
There are two keys to changing the current: humility and prayer. When we stay humble, there’s nothing God cannot do in us and through us. That certainly applies to marriage. When I walk in Christ-like humility and have a desire for oneness, I gain wisdom and experience — instead of repeating my same selfish patterns. Ephesians 4:2-3 reminds us, Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Humility is the key to unity. And prayer is the key to humility. It’s recognition that I cannot do this in my own strength, with my own wisdom.
Prayer is the difference between the best I can do and the best God can do. Prayer softens hearts, downloads wisdom, develops patience, exposes fear, challenges our thinking, and points us to the ultimate relationship with the One who loves us in the purest, most self-sacrificing way. I’ll never be a perfect husband, but I can be a praying husband. There are moments in marriage when prayer is all we have left, but that doesn’t mean it should be a last resort. Prayer is inviting God’s strength into our weakness and He does not disappoint if we are willing to fully surrender to Him. Ecclesiastes 4:12 (NLT) – 12 A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.
Nothing has the potential to change our relationships like humility and prayer! Through the blessings and the trials of my and Ally’s time together, nothing has had as much of a positive impact on our marriage as humility and prayer. For me, it is not that humility and prayer has changed my circumstances or my partner, but rather it has had an extraordinary effect of changing me.
Lord, help me be the husband and father You have called me to be
In His Grace,
Pastor Hamilton & Family