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Love God More Than You Love Your Wife After 3 years of dating Mary Ann , we began to talk about marriage . A little while later we broke up . I was devastated . While praying one night , things became crystal clear : Mary Ann had become an idol in my life . I cared more about what made her happy than what made God happy . It was as if God were saying , " You will have no other gods before me , and if you put something or someone else in My place , I will remove it ." In 25 years of marriage , I still run into the same problem . I keep myself in check with this question : Whom do I fear more : my wife or God ? The level of pain may be more immediate or more pronounced when I don ' t please my wife . Because when I don ' t please God , He doesn ' t go into the other room and get silent on me . But God reminds me , " You do the right thing , even if , for the moment , it doesn ' t make her happy ."
Love Her Biblically and Extravagantly To love her biblically , we need to ask , " What is God ' s love for us like ?" The essence of His love for us is reflected in His commitment to us and His sacrifice for us . That ' s what our love for our wife needs to look like too . For me , it often means placing her needs ahead of my own . And it means that I will still sacrifice for her even when we disagree . She must be my priority . Remember the little line in the marriage vow , " Forsaking all others , until death do us part "?
That means your relationship with your wife is more important than any other relationship -- friends , your boss or even your children . Put simply , we must love our wives more than anything on earth ; that is the essence of the marriage relationship . D . L . Moody summed it up best : " If I want to find out whether a man was a Christian , I wouldn ' t go to a minister ; I ' d go and ask his wife .
If a man doesn ' t treat his wife right , I don ' t want to hear him talk about Christianity . What is the use of talking about salvation for the next life if he has no salvation for this life ?"
This past May , Mary Ann and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Maui , Hawaii . The surroundings were incredible , but really we were just happy to be together . Over dinner that night , we could both say that in spite of any challenges that have come our way , we wouldn ' t change the outcome of our shared 25 years . That ' s because God has used our relationship with each other more than anything else to make us more like Christ . And ultimately , that is His purpose for marriage .
by Bob Lepine with Chris Lawrence
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