IS LOVE INDISPENSABLE TO MARRIAGE

So far we have considered the issues of courtship and compatibility as indispensable to marriage and I have tried to canvas the fact that these two trends do not guarantee a blissful marriage. In fact what will help your marriage to survive the storms of life goes beyond what the average person considers as key ingredients to a successful marriage.

The third common myth attached to marriage is the presumption that you must love someone to ensure that you can have a successful marriage with that person. While I do agree that love plays a vital part in having a strong and successful marriage but the truth is that marriage entails more than love.

First of all, it is not possible to marry everyone you love! I love my mother passionately but I cannot marry my mother and it is that simple. I also love my sisters but that does not make them eligible for marriage. We need to look beyond love in many cases to determine that ingredient that will help us make our marriage work. Can I by digression state emphatically that, marriage is WORK and not just work but HARD WORK.

One of the Biblical references that continually thrills me is the marriage of Isaac to Rebekah in Genesis 24:1-67. Abraham sent his trusted servant Eliezer to get a wife for his son Isaac from among his kinsmen and the story goes about how a marriage was contracted without the couple seeing each other until after the wedding has been concluded. Imagine? You may say this cannot happen in our age and time but this is one Biblical standard worth examining.

What is particularly of interest to me today is how the Bible concludes the story in verse 67

"And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent and she became his wife. He loved her deeply and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother."

Notice that the Bible says Isaac loved Rebekah deeply but that happened after she became his wife.It was the renowned Christian Apologist Ravi Zacharias who said love is as much a function of the will as it is of the emotions. In other words you can will to love a person if you choose to.

Is it not a popular saying that where there is a will there will be a way?

The issue here is that as long as your spouse is the will of God for you it does not really matter if you are not "head over heels" in love with him or her at the onset, just settle the issue of God's approval and the rest will fall in line. Is it not better to start off not really loving someone and then grow to love that person deeply rather than start on the high note of being madly in love at the beginning only for the love to dissipate over time. You hear people say, I no longer love him or her and because they fall out of love they want to end the relationship.

More next time. God bless you!

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