#17 - A Goal for Marriage {Reflections}

What is up everybody?

My name is Ryan Braley and I'm the pastor here at Central.

Welcome to our Reflections podcast on in studio here in Mike's Beats Laboratory.

What's up, mike?

The twins broke the streak.

In case you didn't know, the twins beat the Blue Jays yesterday and, as my Rockies are in the proverbial basement, I am a twins fan, at least for the postseason here, and I don't know when this podcast episode will be released, but at least today, live the twins have one game one and they're on to game two.

So where do you go, twins?

Hey, I did a wedding recently and there's weddings, you know, in every one of these weddings the couple picks out of a Bible verse to read, and almost I mean I don't know every one in three they will often go to Ecclesiastes.

One of my favorite books in the whole New Testament is this ancient, you know this ancient Hebrew wisdom, and the poet, the great co-alette, the poet who wrote Ecclesiastes, says this about relationships, and this is why people often pick it for their wedding verse is what they say.

So it's Ecclesiastes 4 and it's verse 9.

In this verse the writer says two are better than one.

Fair enough, because they have good return for their labor, and if either of them falls down, one can help the other up.

Alright, sounds good, but pity anyone who falls down and has no one to help them up.

This is why marriage is good you'll have someone to help you up if you fall down.

Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.

If you're lying in bed alone it's kind of cold, but if you have someone with you it can be warm.

But how can anyone keep warm alone?

The author says, though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

So you know, if you do a tussle you can do a scrap, a row, a row is it a row or a row, whatever?

If you know a fight, you know like you do when you're a kid.

You got, you got some backup, you got your crew with you, because two are not easily overpowered like just one is.

And then it goes on to saying that a cord of three strands is not easily broken, and anytime I read this at weddings, I always want to chuckle a little bit, because it's absolutely a practical guide to romance or friendship or love.

It's like listen, having a good friend or, you know, in the case of a wedding, having a partner for life, a marriage partner.

It's just better because you know you get.

You get better return for your labor.

Someone falls down, you have someone to help you pick you up.

You know if you want to lay down, it keeps you warmer at night.

If you get into a fight, you got some backup at hand.

And it makes me laugh because all these reasons are just very practical, like nothing super romantic or magical, it's just no, no, no.

Here's why you want to get married or have a good friend or a partner in life because it's just better.

Here's all these practical reasons why.

And it's odd because whenever I talk with people now and I say like, hey, what?

Like, let's say, a romantic relationship, and I talk to them I say, hey, what do you want your relationship to look like in five years, oftentimes they'll have in their mind this magical notion of, like ongoing passion, like I want my marriage to be full of passion, weekend and week out, day in and day out.

And in five years or 10 years, or 20 years, I want my marriage to be full of passion, but but.

But here's the problem this kind of thing like passion and magic, it really comes and goes and what happens is, on the days that it goes, the people in the marriage.

They will often think to themselves well gosh, the magic has gone, so there must be something wrong with the marriage.

Or I often will hear some folks say something like well, I was in love with so-and-so and I fell out of love with them and the passion is gone.

And so the marriage must be.

It must have a problem.

There's a problem within the marriage, and this couldn't be further from the truth.

I mean really what you want, you don't want to.

I mean this idea of having an ongoing passionate marriage forever, day in and day out.

It's just, it's not actually reasonable or rational.

What you want instead is what you might call companion love.

The goal in five years or 10 years or even 20 years is to really be best friends with the person that you're married to.

Like this should be the goal to be best friends.

Now, katie and I accidentally stumbled into this because when we first started hanging out, I got to know her back in like, I think, 1998, 100 years ago, and we liked each other.

But I man, I I was trying to figure my own life out.

I had had a past, you know, like a dating history.

It wasn't the most healthy and so we were both trying to figure out life and kind of settle some things down.

And so we were honestly accidentally friends for about a solid year and I came to visit her here in Minnesota just as a friend I was a friend that she had met in Colorado came to hang out with her, met her family there was like zero pressure on me at all when I met her dad and her mom and her brothers and it was super cool and then we became just really really good friends and that friendship accidentally blossomed into what we now.

You know, 23 years of marriage.

But magic and passion comes and goes.

But here's the thing best friends who are married will have plenty of passion.

It always works out that way.

If your goal is to be married to your best friend and to build that companion it kind of love that holding on for dear life being best friends then passion will come.

You'll have plenty of passion.

But the reality is that if your goal is to have that magical, passionate kind of love, you really can't live like that.

I mean falling in love, if you remember it back when it's a super intense experience, like it's physically even a super intense experience.

It's like 4th of July in your head all the time and to live like that every day, to have that be your goal and marriage would be.

It's just too much and you couldn't do it.

But being best friends is the way to go.

So here's my encouragement if you're a young person and you're dating or you're getting sort of you know you're sort of being romantic or getting romantic your goal shouldn't be magic and passion day in and day out, but rather it should be this companion love, a deep friendship.

So do things to foster a friendship.

And if you're in a marriage currently, what are things that you can do to foster friendship?

So do things that are practical and go out and have fun together and be friends.

That's the goal.

Because then, if that's your goal and you do that and maintain it over time, you'll have plenty of passion and magic at the end of the day.

But your goal should be companion love.

So friends, here is to companion love, to building a friendship that will ultimately bring passion with it.

But here's to being good friends with those in your life and those you get married to from now until the end.

Bless you, guys.

We'll talk to you later.

Peace, hey, if you enjoy this show I'd love to have you share with some friends.

And don't forget, you're always welcome to join us in person at central in Elk River at 830, which is our local gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering, or you can check us out online at clclcriverorg.

Peace.