I’ve been reading through the Bible over the last year and for the last week or so I’ve been in 1 Corinthians and recently read the thirteenth chapter which most people will recognize as the “love chapter.”

It’s been different, though, reading it through the Message translation. Read this:

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. (1 Cor. 13:1-3).

You know, even when a married couple are both believers in Christ, we can still struggle, can’t we? We can share and discuss God in our small groups and Bible studies and then turn around and come home and do the exact opposite with our spouses. And if one of our spouses is not a believer, or maybe struggling in their own relationship with God, it can set the marriage balance off even more.

You may have heard this before, but love cannot just be an emotion – it must be a commitment. Because the emotion of love is going to change from day to day just as sure as you change your clothes or your hairstyle or your nail polish.

So what should love look like in our marriages? Is it romantic love – with rose petals and candle light and soft music in the background as our husbands take us into their arms? It can be. But is it also a hand over the other or an arm wrapped around a shoulder as we disagree about something and are talking it out, trying to come to a resolution between us? Yes.

I think more than anything, that love cannot be love without grace. And how often do we really show grace to our spouses? Maybe once before we finally decide to tell them exactly how we feel?

I know what it’s like to show grace towards my husband and what happens when that truly and genuinely occurs. I also know what it’s like to receive that grace. Neither one of us is perfect. When grace is given, there is a pulling together that happens, almost like holding two magnets up that are instantly attracted together. But when grace doesn’t happen – when I put my needs and what I expect in between him and I, there’s a repelling that goes on, and try as you might, those two magnets are not going to come together.

I was listening to a radio talk show on my way back from Atlanta last week. There was a group of women on who were talking about the issue of relational idolatry. I had never really heard this term but it really caused me to think. Relational idolatry could also be characterized as co-dependence, where you place extremely high expectations on someone else. Wives can do it with our husbands; we can also do it with friends, with parents, with anyone who we think will keep us secure and safe.

I think this can be very common for women and speaking in terms of military wives, it can be hard for our husbands to live up to these standards we place on them when they can’t be there in person to meet up to those standards. Right? So we get frustrated because we don’t think they’re keeping up their end of the deal, even though many times what we’re expecting is unfair of us to expect in the first place.

We’ve placed our husbands in the center of our hearts and minds and worlds, instead of allowing God to stay the center. Yet, things always work out so much better when it’s the other way around.

If we are looking at our husbands with unfair expectations, than it will almost be impossible to give them the love-with-grace they deserve. But if we look at them through God’s eyes, keeping God in the center of our lives, then we are much more likely going to offer grace with our love, rather than a long list of how he hasn’t met my needs today.

I’ll close this series with these last thoughts from 1 Cor. 13.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies…..
Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. (1 Cor. 13:4-8, 13)

Have a great weekend!

Next week: Keeping God the center.