I have a wife, and… I spend time with her family.

I am very lucky.  I actually like my wife’s family, and enjoy spending time getting to know them.  In some cases they might not be people that you would choose to spend time with, but you try to love them for your wife’s sake.

Who is God’s family?

The Church of course. 

So it is important to spend time with other Christians.  Building a personal relationship is important, but so is corporate worship and regular meeting with others in the faith.

You can learn a lot about a person by talking to their family, and seeing how other people relate to that person.

You might not like the Church, you might not like other Christians.  But God does, so we need to learn to love them and spend time with them, for His sake and our own.

I have a wife, and… I am honest with her.

Well, perhaps honest is not the right word.  I am honest with everyone.

I am … open?

I am honest and open about my faults and my feelings.  I do not try to hide anything from her, because by now she knows me so well she knows all these things before I say them.  I can not pretend I am happy when I am upset, and I need to be honest about why if I we are going to build a relationship.  If I am holding something back, them I am asking her to have a relationship with only part of me, or with someone who is not me.

God also wants us to be open and honest. 

In Genesis, Abraham argues with God about the destruction of Sodom.  (Genesis 18:20-33)  King David and Jeremiah often complain to God when they are hurting and feel far away from Him.  Moses even tells God “Enough is enough!  If you are really with us you need to show it.” (Genesis 33:1-17)  And God listens!

He knows what is on our hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves.  He wants us to be honest and open with Him, so we can grow closer to Him.

I have a wife, and… we share secrets.

We spoke last time about reading the Bible. 
(You did get that that was what I talking about, right?)

Well, you can not read scriptures all the time. 
But you can think about them all the time.

We can not be God’s friends if we do not listen to what he wants to share with us.  If we meditate on his words, he will share secrets from the Word.  I used to be very envious of people who seemed to know their Bibles so well, and always got deep insights from it.  Then I started reading mine more, and it was amazing to me how much God opened up His Word to me, and helped me make it part of my life.

It was about getting the Word through me, not getting through the Word.

Oh, how I love your law!
   I meditate on it all day long.
Psalm 119:97 (NIV)

I read somewhere that meditating on Scriptures is easy… if you know how to worry then you already know how to meditate.  You just have to learn to shift focus. 

I have a wife, and…I read her letters to me.

Not just her letters.  I save every e-mail, text message, online chat record.  Everything she ever wrote to me I keep, and go back and read and re-read it because she wrote it for me.

At the beginning, I would read it over and over looking for deeper meaning.  “What did she mean by that word?”  “Why did she call me that?” or “What is she trying to say?”  (Of course that might just be me.)

I love her words, because I love her.  And each word she wrote was written with me in mind, and written because she loves me.

Do I treat my study of the Bible as seriously?  Do I treasure each word that God wrote to me, and go over it again and again looking for deeper meaning?

I have a wife, and… we spend time together.

Sometimes I talk to her. 
Sometimes she talks, and I listen.
Sometimes we both talk.
Sometimes we do not talk, we just sit in silence together.

It is AWESOME.

I love my wife, and I love spending time with her.  Not just once a week for an hour, or ten minutes of talking before I go to sleep at night. 

I want to spend all my spare time with her.  In order to build a relationship with her, I need to share all my experiences, all the time.  So I can really say I am spending quality time with her.

Sometimes when I am very busy, I will just send her a quick text message on her mobile ‘phone, or SKYPE, to say “I’m thinking about you.”

Am I treating my prayer life with GOD the same way?  Do I take spending time with Him as seriously?

 

FISH for Lent – Year 3

Today is Ash Wednesday, which makes it the official start of Lent. 

As has been my custom in the past, I will not be posting about Lent on this blog.  Instead I will be running a second blog, FISH for Lent, where I will post daily ponderings on my Lenten Journey. 

Come on over and join me there if you are into such things.  Even if you do not do/follow/believe-in Lent, it will be quite interesting.  I will be looking at the Fruit of the Spirit, and would value your comments and opinions. 

On this blog, we will be starting the series “I have a wife, and…” from tomorrow.  So stick around and comment on that as well.

I have a wife, and…

Last year I met and married the most amazing woman.  She really is a gift from God, and I thank Him every day for bringing her into my life.

She has taught me a lot.  About myself, about relationships, about life.  I love her, and I want to work hard at our relationship to make it grow.

I believe one of the reasons God gives us the covenant of marriage is to try and help us to understand His relationship with us, and how we can work at it to make it grow.

So I will be starting a series called “I have a wife, and…” in which we will be looking at the ways we can learn from our relationship with our romantic partner about how to build our relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

Whether you are married, in a relationship, or single, I hope you will stick around and give me some input.  I am still quite new to this relationship thing, and could use some pointers.

Valentine’s Angst.

I think my Valentine’s Day went very well this year, thank you. 
How about yours?  Were you romantic, apathetic, or did you overthink it?