Marriage

I fell asleep late last night. All day long I had been thinking about marriage, the beauty of it, the implications of it. The idea of spending the rest of my life with one woman-whom I will love so dearly that I would think nothing of giving my life for her. That intimacy which extends far beyond the physical, into the spiritual. To actually approach the Father with another at my side.

I had been wrestling with the thought all day.

As I finally slept, I began to dream, and believe me, this was a long dream.

I remember preparing to meet my bride at the altar that day. I was dressed in full tux, and anxiously awaiting the moment when the doors would fling open, and I would see her walking to meet me. There was a beautiful tension in the air. It was as if this marriage was the most natural thing ever, yet it had been delayed, so I should hurry up and get on with it.

The moment came soon enough. She came down the aisle, and to my surprise, I had no idea who she was. I began to think to myself, “Who is this woman?” And due to the irrational nature of dreams, I still married her (which I found hilariously disturbing later that morning).

As I looked at her in front of me, I tried my hardest to emotionally turn on something that would resemble love, yet the only thing that came was frustration. So, at the altar I covered my face with a meek smile, yet inside there was flurry of emotions as to what I should do in the next 5 seconds.

And then I just allowed it to happen. I married her. Neither knowing who she was, nor knowing her name. If that was bad, the reception after was even worse. The feelings of excitement never came, the bubbling anticipation of the years to come turned to dread and fear.

I danced, yet there was nothing to dance about. I went through the motions of cutting the cake, yet I felt no gladness in my heart. And that was the end of the dream.

After an excruciating night of dreaming, I woke up disgusted as to what had just gone on in my mind for the previous 8 hours. I thought, “What a freakish, sick, twisted dream. Who would marry someone they don’t even know?”

I put the dream aside for the day, but now I come back to it. I realized two things about this dream.

One, when we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he wants to know us deeply and intimately. The sickness I feel in my stomach as I write this line is nearly overwhelming; how could we as the people of God not long to know Him who desires to know us fully? Could it be that on the great and glorious day of the wedding banquet, we come to Him not knowing Him? We come to Jesus expecting heaven and a house and access to His riches, but when we come, He offers us His hand?

Now I’m not sure what would happen after that, but the very idea of coming to your own wedding but not knowing your bride/groom is sickening to me. The same idea of coming to Jesus not knowing him is even more stomach-churning.

How dreadful would it be to realize in that moment that your life on earth could have been spent knowing the Father in greater and greater measure? Jesus said, “Eternal life is this, knowing the Father, and his son Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.”

Sons and daughters of God, I implore you, seek Him to know him.

Secondly, this train of thought pertains to my current struggles, so I hope that you will allow me to throw the line out a bit more. I also realized that in my desire for a Godly wife, in the words of Song of Solomon, I must “not awaken love until it so desires.” The culture we live in demands that we seek a woman or a man quickly and without much consideration. It says that college is the time to meet your wife, the time to find her and hold her tight, lest she be taken from you. This deeply engrained (and false) idea, along with a handful of recently attended weddings, has brought this issue to the forefront of my mind.

If we cannot trust that God will provide that person (with all due pursuit on our part), I don’t know if we can trust God with anything.

I believe this period of waiting is good. If I’m to trust him with all my life, I must trust him to give to me the desires of my heart, a woman to love and cherish. I believe he will, but until then, I will wait, and I will continue to love him first.