What If?

If you happen to be married, are you ever tempted to wonder what your life would be like if you had married someone else? When things aren’t going well in your marriage such thoughts may be tempting, but they won’t solve your problems.
When a Christian couple is faced with such questions, they may agonize over the absence of clear counsel in the Bible on the subject, while ignoring the counsel that is there. Maybe the issue isn’t whether or not they married the right person.
This was greatly impressed upon me some years ago by a couple who were considering marriage. There was a significant difference in their ages and family members were concerned that it wasn’t a wise idea. The man and woman were both committed Christians and diligent students of the Bible. They painstakingly researched what the Bible had to say about marriage and reached a significant conclusion. They determined that the Bible said comparatively little about who you marry, but a great deal about the way you treat one another once you are married.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter who you marry, obviously it’s a very important decision. But once it’s made, don’t fantasize about what life would be like if you had married someone else. Start demonstrating Christian love to the person you married.
When we ask ourselves, “Did I marry the wrong person?” we are asking the wrong question. We are wondering if we married the wrong person, while God is asking us if we are loving the person we married.

Related Scripture: Ephesians 5:28, 33

© 2007 Leith Anderson