IF you are like me, you have a go at making your new gadget or computer programme work without reading the directions. The computer programme has a plaintive, ‘Read me’, section and even a ‘Help’ key to succour the desperate: nevertheless, most of us push ahead on our own. There seems to be a ‘know-it-all’ streak in most of us – or is it that we simply must do it our way?
It does not matter much if we get tangled up in cooking, gardening or computer antics, but it can prove calamitous with friendships, courtship and marriage. Self-will is not God’s will, and we need to know the difference.
Why do relationships go wrong?
We haven’t to go far at our place of work or in our street or, sadly, in the ecclesial world before we come across a broken home. In today’s world marriages or, even more, merely living together will, in up to half of the cases, end in break-up.
How do you explain this? Do you think you will be any more successful in your relationships? If you do, why are you so sure?
Rock or sand?
I am not happy about writing this section, but I’ll do it anyway. A lot of people all over the Christadelphian world are saying that many of our folks, young and old, no longer read the Bible consistently. How true this is you can to a certain extent judge for yourself. Starting with yourself, how do you stand? Be honest.
Jesus told us plainly that we build our lives on rock or sand depending on whether we follow his words or not. It is as simple as that. It is no substitute only to listen to someone else talking about the words of Jesus, or to hear advice based on someone else’s experience, or to try to ‘jolly’ ourselves along with ‘spiritual songs’.
Hear and do
The Bible is God talking to each of us. We are not asking someone else, ‘What did He say?’, we are listening to His voice for ourselves. Take the following straightforward words:
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed?”
(Amos 3:3)
“Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.”
“He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination.” (Proverbs 28:9)
“My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.”
“Fools hate knowledge.”
God’s word is intended to be a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. It is God’s life-guide for those who want to please Him.
A lottery?
A cynic once said: ‘Marriage is a lottery’. ‘Happy marriage is pure chance’, he said. Suppose we choose someone by their looks, are all good-looking people happily married? Or, by money: are all well-to-do people secure? We know the answers. But there is a strange twist: are all Christadelphians happily married? No! Why not? And, isn’t it possible to have a lasting marriage without being a disciple of Christ? Yes, it is.
The truth is that whatever precautions we take, there may be trouble ahead. Nevertheless, the better prepared we are, the less likely it is that we shall be caught up in avoidable disasters. Not all aircraft arrive safely, but we are more likely to escape accidents on a well-built, regularly serviced aircraft with a fully trained, experienced and healthy pilot. So it is with marriage. God who ordained marriage has given us good rules by which to be guided and safe-guarded.
The footings
The footings are the foundation courses of a wall or building. ‘Footings’ is an excellent word. One of its old meanings was footmarks or a trail. Marriage is a journey and the footings must be right in both senses.
Here are the best footings for friendship and marriage:
- Read the Bible every day.
- Pray regularly and about everything.
- Choose your life’s partner from among those who practise 1 & 2 in our own community.
- Restrict your choice to those who also attend our meetings habitually.
- Make sure your own and your friend’s lifestyle is in harmony with all of these things.
- Talk regularly and easily about the truth and agree with your chosen friend that serving God is your number one priority.
- Does your friend really look like a disciple of Jesus? And behave like one?
- Would your friend be a help or a hindrance on the journey to the kingdom?
- And be a parent who would bring up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord?
- Could you truly be heirs together of the grace of life?
Now, do you think those are reasonable criteria? Ask yourself how you personally match up to them. In other words, if someone of the opposite sex were to use those rules in assessing your worth, would you pass the test? Do you think Christ uses different standards in choosing his Bride?
When all else fails
You may already be married but find yourself deficient at some point in the above golden rules. If so, it is not too late to put things right. Lay your lives before God in prayer and start today to read His word and to serve Him well. You will be surprised what a difference such commitment makes and you will realise a greater peace of mind.
We live in a world where everything else is failing to one degree or another. Our world believes in the right to break up friendships and to shatter marriages, with disastrous consequences for the children, and probably one of the partners. Our world believes ‘it knows best’, and best does not include Christ. It believes in ‘joy’-riding with stolen partners and regardless of the law of God. It receives its instruction more from soap operas than from the old Ten Commandments. Our world is lost.
A man is known by the company he keeps. Choose the kind of partner who would please Christ, and choose prayerfully. When all else fails he will never leave you nor forsake you.