What I Will Soon Learn From Living With A Woman

In just a few short months I will make the great transition from a single college kid to a married adult. This is pretty exciting, but pretty scary at the same time. Being married opens up a whole new world of questions that I have never had to ask before, for instance:

How will I handle sharing a bathroom with someone who squeezes their toothpaste from the middle of the tube?

How do I decide which side of the bed will be my permanent resting place for the rest of my life?

Will Casey think I am weird when she walks in on me having insane air guitar solos in front of the bathroom mirror? Will she judge me?

There is one thing though that I already have figured out that I know will make me a very happily married man and that is this: Casey likes me to do stuff for her without her asking.

It might sound obvious, but this is a pretty big revelation. I mean, I have always been willing to do whatever she asked but anybody can do that. I pay her a much greater sign of respect when I know her well enough to simply know what she would like done and do it on my own. I should not have to wait for her to ask me to help with something; I should know her wants and needs so well that I always know how to be a blessing. The goal of our relationship is not so that she can teach me everything I need to know about serving her. The goal is intimacy. I have to grow closer to her and get to know who she is a little more each day. It is not enough for me to just ask her for a list of everything she wants me to do and everything she wants me to be because I have the privilege of getting to know her.

This makes total sense with a physical person I can see and touch but it does not necessarily carry over to the God that lives inside of me. I have noticed lately in my prayer life that I have been trying to skip over intimacy for the sake of instruction. I sometimes go to God like He is my CEO without passion or relationship simply asking what job He has for me to do. This is a quest for minimal effort on my part. I want to go to God and fulfill His checklist so I can be in the right place spiritually so that He feels obliged to let me in on what His plans are for the next season of my life. I do not want to know God; I want to know what He wants me to do.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the purpose of our life is to accomplish something. I mean, who wants to live their whole life and not accomplish anything? Now we know the Christian response would be to say that we do not pursue worldly accomplishments like fame and fortune but we pursue making a difference in the kingdom of God, which is true of course. But what if the accomplishments are not the goal?

What if the dreams God has given you or the “call” He has set on your life are not supposed to be the main goal?

The goal of a marriage is not to get stuff done. Nobody gets married to be in a dynamic duo of a child-rearing and home-maintaining precision machine. The goal is intimacy and God desires the same thing with His Bride.

God does not call people to Africa, teenagers, or the inner-city without first calling them to Himself. The “call of God” that we are all so desperately yearning for is a call to know  God intimately. We have this idea that God picks people for His service like we used to pick teams for kickball at school. Everybody lines up and the cool kids stare everybody down and start calling out names of who they want on their team. The reality is that every person on the field is called by God with the same calling and it is a call of intimacy. We were all created to know God.

 If we are not pursuing intimacy with God now, what are we going to do with an eternity of Heaven where we will sit in the presence of God forever?

Once we realize that the purpose of everything we do should be to know God’s heart a little bit more each day then all other instruction will simply flow out of our relationship with Him. God never told David to kill Goliath, he simply saw that there was a problem and knew God well enough that He could solve it. God never asked Isaiah to be a prophet. Isaiah just overheard God talking about the things that people were doing that grieved Him so the lone visionary stepped up and said “Here Am I, Send Me!”

When we know God intimately we have the opportunity to volunteer for service instead of getting drafted in.

God is the destination, not just the means of transportation.