You won’t find happiness at the end of a road named selfishness.
We are told to seek first the kingdom of God, not seek first marriage.
I think marriage is designed to call us out of ourselves and learn to love the “different.
One of the best wedding gfts God gave you was a full-length mirror called your spouse. Had there been a card attached, it would have said, “Here’s to helping you discover what you’re really like!” – Gary and Betsy Ricucci.
This is the journey marriage calls us to, to seek to understand and empathize, for each of us to strive to become a redemptive partner rather than a legal opponent.
Virtue, though often mocked and ridiculed, is as beautiful as wickedness is ugly. Self-denial curiously spawns joyful happiness, while selfishness and arrogance produce desperation and obsession. Being faithful to duty brings great fulfillment, while following unchecked passions eventually leads us to despise ourselves. And the greatest truth of all: There is no higher end, no more glorious life, no better aim, than to live in the fear and favor of Almighty God.
It’s better to admit your weaknesses and make provision for them than to pretend you’re something you’re not and suffer the consequences when your true character surfaces. Caring about not hurting girls or tempting boys you’ve not yet dated trains you toward compassion. And compassion will serve you very well in marriage.
Finding fulfillment in God is the most powerful antidote to any sin.
Good spiritual directors understand that people have different spiritual temperaments, that what feeds one doesn’t feed all. Giving the same spiritual prescription to every struggling Christian is no less irresponsible than a doctor prescribing penicillin to every patient.
That’s what’s so difficult about Jesus’ call to love others. On one level, it’s easy to love God, because God doesn’t smell. God doesn’t have bad breath. God doesn’t reward kindness with evil. God doesn’t make berating comments. Loving God is easy, in this sense. But Jesus really let us have it when he attached our love for God with our love for other people.
When we focus on what we can do, it’s amazing how little time we have left to become consumed by our disappointments.
I’m going to ask you to do something that may feel even more painful: when you get close to becoming engaged, put any public announcement on delay for a few weeks and spend several sessions talking through all these issues again with someone else present.
Discerning someone’s character, true values, and suitability for marriage is hard work. It takes time, counsel, and a healthy dose of objective self-doubt and skepticism. Identifying someone as “God’s chosen” or Plato’s “soul mate” is comparatively easy. You “feel” it in your gut. It seems right. You can’t imagine anyone else. You must have found the one!
Marriage is a good thing, and being intentional about your pursuit of it is commendable, not shameful.
Our battle is today. Because of God’s grace, yesterday doesn’t count. Because of God’s hope, worry about tomorrow is inappropriate.
You won’t hear a character’s friend say this in a romantic comedy. Taylor Swift won’t sing this, Eminem won’t rap it, and Suzanne Collins won’t write it, but it’s true: just because you’re “in love” with someone doesn’t mean you should seriously consider marrying them.
Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate. W. H. Auden.
How much would every marriage change if we pursued absolute benevolence over our own comfort, happiness, and self-interest?
In this generation, we parents have gone out of our way to protect our children from pain and to see that they succeed. The problem with this approach is that the kids don’t learn wisdom, and they don’t learn decision-making skills. I believe we learn more from failure than success, but when parents keep kids from failure, our children inevitably end up lacking wisdom.
When our happiness is dependent on what happens to us and when our self-focus determines our daily mood, our joy will necessarily be limited to whatever good thing happens to us. But when we learn to truly delight in the welfare of others and rejoice in what God is doing in their lives, the potential for increased joy skyrockets.