Journey to Surrender

Several of my blogging friends have already posted on the things they love about being married. So I thought it was high time I jump in and give you my list too.

Note: you'll find links to other bloggers' "things I love about marriage" posts at the end of this post. Be sure to check them out.

So without further ado, here's my list.

1)  Great Sex

I suppose I'm being stereotypically male by putting this one first. But the truth is that sexual intimacy is the one physical characteristic that distinguishes my marriage from every other relationship in my life. It's more than the icing on the cake of my marriage. It's binds Jenni and I together in powerful ways, like nothing else can. Sex is like super-glue in our relationship. I'll put it right out there that I am thankful we share a passionate and exciting sex life and that Jenni and I try to make it a priority amidst all the craziness of life that tries to prevent it.  See my post "Becoming One Flesh - Literally."

2)  We Are One.

Sex distinguishes our marriage from all other relationship in the physical - it's where we are literally one flesh. It's also true that when we married, we also become one in spirit and soul. Again, this oneness is unique to my relationship with Jenni. We aren't one with our kids, our jobs, our churches, friends or family. We are only one with each other. It means we share a mysterious and supernatural connection to one another that we continue to understand more and more the longer we are married. Check my recent post "What If... You and Your Spouse Really Are One." 

3)  It's a Living Bridal Paradigm

It always amazes me how our marriage informs my understanding of my walk with Jesus.  It works the other way around too. My spiritual life often teaches me about marriage. It makes sense in light of the Bridal Paradigm, the notion that we are the bride of Christ.

4)  We Get Each Other

Jenni and I have been married for almost 32 years, and we really know each other at the deepest level. We enjoy true intimacy. which I define as being fully known and yet totally loved. Without speaking we know how each other will respond in different situations, often exchanging knowing looks. We know each other's strengths, which we rely on, and each other's weaknesses, which we try to have grace for.

4)  She is My Encouragement & Inspiration

My wife is my biggest cheer leader. She is a continual source of encouragement when I face difficulty and a great inspiration for me to live my life toward the destiny God has for me.

5)  We Fit

In many way Jenni and I are opposites. In other ways we are exactly the same. All in all, we just fit.  We counterbalance each other in important ways. Her fun-loving nature balances out my slight melancholy. My love of adventure and discovery balances out her risk aversion. Her social and people skills balance out my complete lack of such things. My practicality and logic (Meyer Briggs T) balances our her total dependence of feelings (Meyers Briggs F).  In other ways, like our spiritual outlook, we are very much in line with each other. We share a common set of core values, such as over finances and the importance of family.

6) We Grow Each Other

I almost said "We Fit Perfectly" for number 5, but I realized that such a relationship probably doesn't exist. That leads me to reason number six. Dr. David Schnarch says, "Marriage is a people growing machine." I agree. If your marriage is anything like mine, it's where the best and worst of you comes out. But in the end we help each other grow and rub the rough edges off of each other.

7) It's Fun!

The truth is I love being married to Jenni because we enjoy each other so much. We have fun together no matter where we go or what we do. We just enjoy each other's presence, even if it's simply sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean and staring quietly at beauty for hours on end (yes, we've done that).

Bonus:
8) Disappearing Kisses

I make no secret about the fact that I think kissing is really important, and I am fortunate that Jenni is a wonderful kisser. We have this thing we call "disappearing kisses." It's a little hard to describe, but if you've had one, you'll know exactly what I mean. It's the kind of kiss that makes everything else disappear. Every worry, every pain, every stress, and every distraction all just fade far into the background and there is just the two of us sharing a soul-stirring and intimate kiss.

What about you? What do you love about being married?  I don't just mean being married in general, but what do you love about being married to your particular spouse? Leave a comment and let the world know!

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Other bloggers proclaiming their love of marriage:

• One Flesh Marriage- Brad and Kate each share their lists

• Black and Married with Kids – 4 Awesome Things I Love About Being a Married Man

• Generous Husband – 7 Awesome Things I Love About Being a Married Man

• Generous Wife – I Love Being Married

• Hot, Holy & Humorous – 6 Things I Love About Being Married

If you didn't yet watch the video from my last post, do it now. Really, you'll be glad you did.  Here's the link: True Love Video

This video touches me especially deeply, because my wife and I cared for my mom for seven years in our home as she relentlessly declined into the grip of Alzheimer's Disease.  We eventually sat by her side in a nursing facility as she slipped into the arms of Jesus in 2008, free at last from the dreadful disease that robbed her of her speech, her dignity, her kind and gentle demeanor, and most of all the family whom she loved so dearly.

My wife and I know first hand the price the devoted husband in the video pays on a daily basis.

I recognize this love - this real, selfless and sacrificial love. I watched as my wife served my mom in many of these same ways, with the same kind of amazing love, a love that can only come from God. It was typically my wife who bore the brunt of my mom's delusional accusations and bizarre behavior, yet she often laid aside her hurt and frustration, at times not even telling me of the many hard things that happened while I was at work.

My wife will tell you she was no saint - that she often struggled with the invasion of her home by another (less than stable) woman. Yet she knew we had been called by the Lord to care for my mom. I watched my wife's willing obedience to that calling, her sacrifice of love, over years and years.

My dear wife genuinely loved my mother, even when she was really no longer the same person she had been. In truth, I know that my wife's willingness to obey the Lord's calling was also out of the deep love she has for me.  Ultimately, though, it was her love for Jesus and the love of Jesus that allowed her to follow his voice in the journey with my mom.

You Carry the Love of Christ

Why do I tell you all this?

Throughout this True Love series, I've been telling you  about how you should love your spouse like Jesus loves His bride. If you are like me, you probably find yourself reacting with both amazement and impossibility to the love of Christ. There's a definite, "that's fantastic!" followed shortly by "I could never love like that." 

I've come to discover that loving my wife in the same way Jesus loves me is completely impossible to do in my own human strength. Fortunately, that's not what God asks of me. Because the living Christ dwells within us, the Holy Spirit empowers us to love way beyond our own abilities.

Both for the husband in the video, caring for his wife, and for my wife, as she cared or my mom, the source of their love was clearly God.

He is Love, after all. It's who He is. And we have that love in us because He is in us.

It can only be supernatural love that causes a husband to care for his wife way beyond simply meeting her physical needs - doing what she cannot do for herself. I love the image above, a frame taken from the video. Not only does this man have a custom bike made that allows them to continue to bike together, as they have all their marriage long, but he fastens a crown to her helmet. Look closely and you'll see it.

It's a statement to her - and a reminder to him - that she is still, and will always be, his "Princess."

Do you sometimes smack up against the hard reality that loving like Christ is an impossible task? Ask God to awaken your heart to the reality that this very love lies within you, and ask Him to help you live in that reality.

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If you missed some of my True Love series, I've included the links below. You'll recognize many of these love characteristics from video:

1. True Love Puts Relationship Ahead of Rules 
2. True Love Pursues Relentlessly 
3. True Love Doesn't Expect Something in Return 
4. True Love Serves 
5. True Love Redeems

I started off my True Love series with a challenge, in which I asked the question:


I have five posts so far in my "True Love" series, but honestly, the video below does more to show what true love is than a hundred and five posts.

Please take three minutes to watch this video and find out what true love looks like in real life.

Redemption, when rooted in love, brings about deep intimacy.

I’m picking up again on my “True Love” series, looking at some of the many marvelous ways Jesus displays love to us and seeing what we can learn for our marriages by His example.

If you are a Christ-follower reading this, then you have experienced Jesus' redemption for yourself:

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death…

Hosea 13:14 (NKJV)

and

[Jesus] gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people...

Titus 2:14 (NKJV)

What was the reason for God to send Jesus to redeem us? Love. He did it for love. He did it so He could have intimacy with us forever. Yes, Jesus died to take care of our sin and shame once and for all, but His goal was intimacy.

Redemption born of love brings intimacy.

Beyond Christian circles the concept of redemption doesn't get much play in our society. So let me bring in a few choice selections from dictionary.com:

1. to recover (something pledged or mortgaged) by payment or other satisfaction: to redeem a pawned watch.
2. to make up for; make amends for; offset (some fault, shortcoming, etc.): His bravery redeemed his youthful idleness.
3. to obtain the release or restoration of , as from captivity, by paying a ransom.

Most of the modern uses of "redeem," and many of the dictionary definitions I didn't include here, have to do with financial transactions. But the redemption I'm writing about today is actually a true love expression. God is by nature a lover and a redeemer. He wants to redeem your marriage.

Redemption in Your Marriage

Where do you need a little redemption in your marriage?

• Have you lost something that you need to recover: your sex life, trust, faith, emotional closeness?
• What circumstances do you need turned around: financial hardship, wayward child, infidelity, in-laws?
• Where do you need a divine exchange: healing for pain, prosperity for poverty, wholeness for brokenness?
• What bondage are you in that you need freedom from: food addictions? alcohol? porn? spending?

God is more than able and more than willing to take our messes and redeem them into a work of beauty. Do you believe it?

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

Romans 8:28

Not some things. Not most things. All things. This is not just a trite saying. It is powerful truth. Believe it, and look to God in faith for the redemption he promises - for the redemption that was accomplish already for us by Jesus.

Your Love Can Redeem Too

Yes, God is a redeemer, and I love that about Him. But guess what! You can also be a redeemer in your marriage. You too have the power to make something good from something not so good.

How might you redeem things in your marriage?

1. Ever hear of make-up sex? That's redemptive love in action!
2. Is there a part of you that you've been withholding from your husband or wife because you don't feel you are getting what you want from him or her? You can redeem your pattern of withholding by freely giving whatever it was, without the expectation of getting something in return.
3. Forgiveness is a form of redemption. Are there past hurts that you say you've forgiven, but that you secretly hold onto? Do you keep them as a  weapon to use during future disagreements? Let them go fully and forget them completely.
4. If you find yourself on the other end of stick, being the one with the hurtful behavior, redeem yourself by owning up to your mistakes. Take  personal responsibility and ask for forgiveness. Let go of defensiveness and excuse making. Seek a change of heart.
5. Are there areas where your spouse is falling short of your expectations?  You can redeem their shortcomings by releasing them from your expectations and responding to him or her as if they are already fully meeting your needs and desires. Look for, emphasize and celebrate the good you see in your spouse.
6. Where have you allowed fear or shame to get a foothold, keeping you from the kind of intimacy you desire in your marriage? Redeem the time you have lost to the forces to fear and shame. Ask God to help you break free of these strongholds, to push past them and the leave them permanently behind you for the sake of intimacy.

The Way of Redemption

I love the story of redemption in the book of Hosea. At God's direction, Hosea marries a prostitute. Eventually she seeks out the arms of other men, but these men ultimately reject her. Incredibly, instead of abandoning Gomer, Hosea takes her back again.  His love is unrelenting, even in the face of her disgraceful and hurtful behavior. It's a picture of the relentless way God loves us, even in our wandering ways. Baker's Theological Dictionary sums it up this way:

The love of God for his people is more graphically portrayed by Hosea than any other Old Testament prophet. Refusing to give up on Israel, God continued to seek their return even in their apostate condition.

In the same way, Jesus gave his life to redeem ours while we were a total mess. He told us that there is no greater love than to give your life for another. Give your life for and to your spouse - give yourself completely, holding nothing back. There is no greater love than this.

And don't forget, the true purpose of redemption is intimacy!

Do you have a story of where God has redeemed something in your marriage? Has he taken a mess and turned it around into something good? Have you seen redemption by your spouse at work in your marriage? Share your stories of redemption in the comments.

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Links To More on True Love:

• True Love Puts Relationship Ahead of Rules
• True Love Pursues Relentlessly
• True Love Doesn't Expect Something in Return
• True Love Serves

Do you want to be a GREAT husband or wife?!?
I love the way Jesus turned the idea of greatness completely upside down:

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Matthew 20:25-28

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

Philippians 2:5-7

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

John 13:14-15

Do I really need to say anything more? Is there any better place than your marriage to act on Jesus’ compelling call for us to serve one another?

It's your turn:  what do you think it means to serve your husband or wife? How have you served or been served by your spouse this week?

Selfless giving. It may be the aspect of “True Love” that is one of the hardest of all for us to consistently attain in marriage. Yet without a doubt, it is one of the biggest keys to building a strong, lasting and delightful marriage.

With the “True Love” series we are examining the many dimension of love expressed to us in the person of Jesus Christ. There are countless verses that describe the selfless nature of Christ's love, but here is one of my favorites:

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.

Ephesians 2:4-5, 9

Even though we were hopelessly lost, totally messed up, and mired in our sin, God’s great love came to us as a free gift in the form of His Son Jesus, to save us.

He doesn’t wait until we get our act together or until we start behaving ourselves. No His love reaches out to us right where we are. He pursues us relentlessly (see my last post), even though we were dead in our sins, in order to redeem us unto Himself and have us for his very own.  Forever.

Give Gifts not Favors

There is a subtle difference between a gift and a favor. A gift is freely given, without the expectation of something in return. A favor, on the other hand, is given with strings attached. I’ll do for you if you do for me.

In marriage favors come with agendas and expectations. It might be the hope of getting something we want.  It might be the goal of changing our spouse to be how we want them to be. It might be to control or manipulate.

Marriage is the place for gifts, freely given, out of love, without precondition or the expectation of something in return. That’s Jesus’ example to us.

Yes, it’s true that when we serve and bless and meet the needs of our spouses, they will tend to respond in kind. But beware going in with a “give-to-get” mentality in your giving. Such a self-serving approach is not sustainable and it sets you and your spouse up for disappointment and failure.

Discover the Joy of Selfless Giving

There is great joy to be found when we learn to genuinely embrace giving simply out of love. The Bible tells us that “for the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.” I believe that joy was found in the intimacy he would gain with us through his unconditional, sacrificial gift.

When we can empty ourselves of our agendas and expectations and show love in ways that we know will bless our husband or wife, we discover the pure, deep joy found in delighting each other – and we discover a wide path to intimacy.

Put Away the Scorecards

I know it’s really tempting to keep score on who is giving more. Of course we will always tend to score things in our favor, don’t we? But regardless, I’m not just asking you to score fairly or even in your spouse’s favor. I’m asking you to throw out the scorecard altogether!

Yeah, it’s radical. Yeah, it’s hard. But truthfully, that is the way we are called to live and love – without scorecards.

Are you ready to toss out the scorecards and to begin to live a life of lavish love – love without conditions? Can you think of one thing you can do this week for your husband or wife that you can give without expecting something in return?

Think of it.  Then take joy in doing it!  

The longer you are married, the more important it is to keep pursuing each other.

I didn’t make much headway in February with my “True Love” series, so I’m starting afresh in March with another attribute of Christ’s love for us: His relentless pursuit.

What does Jesus’ relentless pursuit look like?

It looks like him leaving the perfection of heaven and coming to earth, humbling himself  to take on our human form. As if that weren’t pursuit enough, he went on to be cruelly killed on our behalf in order to make a way for us to dwell with him in intimacy forever.

Now that’s what I call pursuit!

And He did all this “while we were yet sinners,” even knowing that some would reject Him completely.

Pursuit that Never Ends

As if that still weren’t enough, we have this promise from Scripture:

For He, God Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. I will not, I will not, I will not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let you down (relax My hold on you)!

Hebrews 13:5b (AMP)

I love how emphatic the Amplified version is about God’s relentless pursuit, His absolute determination to stay connected with us and to be faithful to us – no matter what.

God is a lover – it’s who He is. His love is relentless, eternal, and unstoppable.

That’s how he wants love to be in marriage.

Relentless Pursuit in Marriage

I know it may sound a little odd to say that you have to still pursue your spouse regardless of how long you’ve been married. But the truth is, the longer you’ve been married, the more important it is to keep pursuing each other.

It’s so easy for us to slip into a kind of comfortable familiarity over time, and we begin to take the wonderful gift of our marriage for granted. That’s a death sentence for marriages!

Why is pursuit important in marriage? As I shared before, pursuit communicates four very important messages to your husband or wife:

1. Desire - Pursuit says “I want you.”
2. Commitment – Pursuit says “I would choose you all over again.”
3. Passion – Pursuit says “I want you bad enough to keep coming after you until I get you.”
4. Pleasure – pursuit says “I find delight in you.”

Funny, don’t these things sound like God's pursuit of us too?

If you want to read some specific suggestion on how you can continually pursue your spouse, read the post “Endless Pursuit” mentioned above.

Or you could always ask your partner, “What things can I do to make you feel pursued?” They may or may not know how to put it into words. Pursuit is not a concept most of us give a lot of thought to, but we know it when we see it.

What have you done in the past few weeks to make your partner feel pursued? What does your spouse do that makes you feel pursued?  Share your stories and experiences with a comment!


PS  In case you missed it, I started this series with “True Love Puts Relationship Ahead of Rules.”

What is true love?

As I said in the kick-off post for this True Love series, I plan to look closely at the way love is expressed to us by God in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. To me that is the best way to learn about True Love.

The story of the Gospel is really a love story. It’s the story of a God who would go to any lengths to have us for himself; who would do whatever it took to live in intimacy with us forever. Even if that meant the death of His own Son.

That is True Love.

It was clear that we would never keep the rules well enough to earn our way back to him. We were stuck in our own imperfection. Mired in our own weakness and sin.

So grace stepped in and found us. Jesus gave his all so that we could be restored to intimacy with the Father. Jesus came to make us his bride for all eternity. Undeserving as we were, He made us the righteousness of Christ.

Jesus overcame our inability to keep the rules so that we could have relationship with him. 

He didn’t merely overlook our failures. He overcame them by his own sacrifice of love, even giving up his own life.

All for the sake of intimacy.

So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.

Rom 7:4

How does Jesus’ display of extravagant love help us understand True Love in marriage?

The next time your husband or wife falls short, offends you, makes a mistake or acts in a way that would otherwise drive you apart, stop and think of how Jesus responded to these very things in us.

So look to Jesus’ example. The next time offense wants to come between you and your beloved, ask yourself, “What must I do to maintain intimacy in this situation? How can sacrificial love win the day and keep our connection?”

I’m not saying it’s easy to do. It's not. But I do believe that is the example of True Love we are to emulate in our marriages.

Do you have a story of when True Love triumphed in your own marriage? Is there a time when your husband or wife put the intimacy in your relationship ahead of his or her right to be offended or hurt? Share your stories in the comments.

Are you a love skeptic or do you love love?

As we approach that most sacred of love observances, Valentine’s Day, I want to challenge you to discover (or re-discover) love. Regardless of where you come down on the worth of celebrating February 14th, I want to push you to grow in your understanding of love.

Between now and Valentine's Day I plan on posting a number of romantic ideas you can use to make this a special day for you and your spouse. As I start sharing ideas, I figure it is also a great time to talk about love.

After all, Valentine’s Day is often described as the “Day of Love.”


Ask ten people what love is and you will get at least ten different answers that vary all over the place.

Is it an emotion? A giddy, head-over-heels feeling? Is it a commitment? Is it romance? Is it a decision of will, a choice? Is love more about the soul, the body or the spirit?  What is the relationship between sex and love?

Who knows? Who decides?

The Bible tells us that God is love. The engineer in me knows that if A=B, then B=A. So can we say that love is also God? The Bible also says we should love like Jesus. What does that mean?


What do you think love is? The truth is that what you believe about love greatly affects your marriage. You must decide what love is to you and your marriage relationship. What your spouse thinks about love is also hugely important, especially in how it differs from your own views.

In the next few weeks, as I share my romantic ideas for Valentine’s Day, I’m also going to be doing a number of posts exploring love. I’m orienting these around love as expressed by Jesus, because He is the best picture of love there is.  It only makes sense to dig deeply into Jesus if we want to know what true love really is.

And so I'm calling this series “True Love.”

In Ephesians 3 Paul tells us we can never fully know the love of Christ, yet he compels us to make that our lifelong ambition. He compels us to try to intimately know this unknowable love, because it is the key to fullness in God. I believe it is also the key to fullness in marriage.

Though I cannot hope to fully explore every dimension of the love of Christ in a few posts scattered through a few weeks, I want to challenge you to really dig deeply into love as we approach the day of love. Determine to go beyond what you think you know about love during these few weeks.

I’m encouraging you to go after a radical love of love. Press into love like never before. Get excited about becoming more Christ-like in your love expressions. Embrace love in the broadest possible way. Don’t settle for your current level of understanding. Challenge your beliefs. Stretch your long-held perceptions.

There is always more to know about love, because there is always more to know about God. We are going to go for it!

Stand by for my first romantic Valentine's Day idea.

But before I launch this series, I’ll leave it open for you to answer.


Leave a comment with your definition, thoughts and ideas. Let’s get this love party started.

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Don't miss my guest post on J's Hot, Holy and Humorous blog:

Ten Lies Wives Believe about Sex (And Ten Truths Your Husband Would Have you Believe Instead)