Thursday November 29, 2018

 

 

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love however is not so easy. When a couple falls in love, they enter into the relationship full of hopes and dreams. Incidentally, hopes and dreams that were a lifetime in the making and that were shaped and formed by the culture and environment in which each one grew up. The woman hopes and dreams that the man will be and act a certain way and the man hopes the woman will do the same. These hopes and dreams however become a big problem the day the man and woman decide to officially enter into a relationship by getting married. The reason being, the moment they are officially married, their hopes and dreams suddenly transfer into the category of expectations. Now, they don’t only hope and dream that their spouse will be and act a certain way. No, now that they are officially married they expect their spouse to be and to act a certain way. What was once in the category of hopes and dreams suddenly moves over into the category of expectations and those expectations become an official debt. Now that you are my husband or wife they say, you are now supposed to…

 

Each time a man or a woman places their expectations on their spouse, they have unwittingly created a debt to debtor relationship. The problem with a debt to debtor relationship is that little by little it overthrows the most important ingredient in any marriage, which is love. A debt to debtor relationship is what you have with your banking institution but it should not be something you have in your marriage. You may initially love the bank that accepted your loan application but every time they send you a bill, you don’t respond by saying, “I can’t wait to open this bill, I love my bank”. In a debt to debtor relationship as long as you do what is expected the relationship works. The problem is that no one feels loved because everyone is simply doing, what they are supposed to do.

 

 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son …  – John 3:16 NIV

 

In a debt to debtor relationship, when a person does as they are expected to do, no one receives credit and no one feels loved. They are simply paying a debt. Love is best demonstrated when we freely and truly give not because we have to but because we want to. God demonstrated his love for us by freely and willingly giving, not because he had to rather because he wanted to. That is how we know that he loves us. Love is best demonstrated when we willingly and freely give. If a person is giving only what they owe, no one feels loved. It is those unexpected acts that make a person feel and know that they are loved.

The way to experience and keep love alive and growing in a marriage is to take all of the expectations and place them back into the category of hopes and dreams because every time a relationship becomes a debt to debtor relationship, no one feels loved even if everyone is doing what they are supposed to. But when a person freely and willingly fulfills another’s hopes and dreams, that person feels loved.

 

Heavenly Father, you loved us with a love that is unconditional, that was freely and willingly expressed when you gave us your only son who paid the price for our sins. Show me Lord how to express that same unconditional love in my marriage. Lord I don’t wand to be a debt holder, I want to freely and willingly love and give for the sake of my spouse. I pray that my hopes and dreams would never become an expectation but rather remain hopes and dreams in the flow of love, freely and willingly given always so that my spouse will know and feel that they are loved. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.