This post is from Sarah Markley’s blog.
I’ve reposted one of her blogs before…this one is also worth putting up here.
Great read -
The Gap in the Covenant
Sometimes my husband and I seriously don’t get along.
We’ve been through this, we’ve gone to marriage counseling, we’ve sat in billions of Bible studies and listened to enough sermons to fill a 64 gig iPod. We even counsel other couples and speak to groups about marriage.
But more-than-occasionally we miss each other. Like really miss. (Picture unathletic college-me taking tennis as a class and missing the fuzzy green ball over and over again. That kind of miss.)
We talk loudly and even hang up the phone. We glare and growl sometimes too. We flop over in bed and turn toward the wall. We sulk and scowl. We expect the worst and live in the past. We think mean, selfish things.
Why can’t he just…
What would be the harm in him….
I’ve told him this a hundred times…
But, even so we have a covenant. We have binding promises. We didn’t say Until One Of Us Wounds The Other. Or Until You Get Really Mad At Me. Or even, Until We Really Really Hate Each Other. We said Until Death Do Us Part. It’s forever.
What makes the difference is this: we are learning to live in the gap of the covenant. Because sometimes only one of us is upholding our promises. Love. Honor. Respect.
When he doesn’t hold up his end, I hold up mine. When I fail miserably and say something un-take-back-able, he stands still as my husband, unshaken by something as fleeting as a word in the face of a promise. Even though it hurts and it takes time to get over, we are learning to practice this.
But our example for this isn’t each other (we are far from skilled even at this) or even another couple we admire. Our example is the first Covenant Maker. The One who stands strong in the face of our adultery, our hatred, our selfish words and actions.
He IS the gap in the covenant. He even stands at the altar with us knowing we will become distracted and trip over our own desires. He knows we will not keep our promises. He knows we are destined for cheating.
But He lives there, right in that place where we don’t keep our end of the bargain. He doesn’t flop over in bed or think mean things. He doesn’t glare at us and live in our past mistakes.
He wants us to live the way we were designed to live. The way we vowed.
But until then, He’ll live in that gap unshaken by us in the face of unmet promises and He’ll make up the difference when we can’t.
Are you living in the gap in your marriage?
