July 2 - Proverbs 21:17a

Whoever loves pleasure

will become poor

Proverbs 21:17a

NIV

 

When brides and grooms rush to the altar, it’s often all about the pageantry. We caught up in the romance.

 

But our wedding vows – and Paul McCartney and the Beatles – are more realistic. They ask:

 

When I get older losing my hair

Many years from now

Will you still be sending me a Valentine?

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

If I’d been out till quarter to three

Would you lock the door?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me

When I’m sixty-four?

 

Paul Hudson – upon whose ponderings we’re basing this series of devotions – is more realistic too. With question 11 he asks …

 

11.  Will you support me if I can’t support myself?

 

Yes, brides and grooms caught up in the pageantry often ignore the weight of the prophecy and promises of the wedding vows …

 

·         “In sickness and in health” is a prophecy. If a marriage lasts long enough, one of us will get cancer, get paralyzed in a car accident, be hobbled by chronic pain, have a stroke, be an invalid (or even get E.D. and can’t perform). That’s not what you really want to think about in a white wedding dress and a handsome tux, but that’s what this day is all about. Will you support me if I can’t support myself?

 

·         “For richer or poorer.” That’s probably a prophecy too. Money is too tight for most people in modern America. We also don’t know how to spend, with too many of us going into debt (mostly over frivolous little conveniences). Most of us think that we can buy happiness (and it’s a temporary happiness, at best), and then we trap ourselves in debts that make us perpetually poorer. The question is: 1) Will you be voluntarily poorer (saving and paying down debt) now so that you can be richer later? Or … 2) will you try to be richer now (spending and borrowing) and poorer later (as you inevitably wind up upside-down)?

 

·         “Till death do us part.” That’s a prophecy and promise too. Will you support me if I can’t support myself … till death do us part? Indeed, Mr. Hudson must be serious about this (and we ought to as well) because in question 14 he asks …

 

14. If I’m the first to go, will you be there with me until the end?

 

Question: “Will you support me if I can’t support myself?” reveals our true motives for marriage. Are you selfish? Or giving? Is marriage about “what’s in it for you”? or is it about blessing the person you love? Will you stick by this young, healthy person, “for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part”?

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who takes turns

supporting and being supported

(I call that marriage.)