WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Greg and I recently celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary! How can that be?  What's even more wild to think about is that our daughter, Lindsay and her husband, Jeff will celebrate their 11th anniversary next month!  It feels like we were just planning their very large wedding dance party! :)  And our other daughter, Katelyn and her husband, Brian, celebrated 6 years of marriage this summer. I remember that garden wedding, end of July, in Omaha, where the temperature was 95 with high humidity. :) But what a great celebration to bless their union. 

Wives, do you remember being asked by your love to become his wife?  Husbands, do you remember the thoughts you had, the excitement, to ask your love to become your wife?   With dreams in our hearts, we step into the beautiful covenant of marriage.  

When Greg, at age 22, asked me to marry him, I was the happiest woman alive!  The thought of spending my life with this man made my heart so full of joy. I said, "YES" immediately. It was something I had been waiting for.  

But what if I had responded to the question, “Will you marry me?” with a hesitation or a half-hearted commitment. 

What if I said to Greg, “Well, I’m not sure I want to give you all of my heart.  I will be faithful to you 360 days of each year, but to ask me to give you my full commitment of loyalty and faithfulness~ that’s asking a lot.  And let’s talk about those vows~ sickness and health, better or worse, rich or poor……I can commit as long as you are healthy and rich and I only want to walk through the good days with you.  Don’t count on me if things get rough.”  Would Greg have wanted to marry me if my faithfulness to him wasn’t whole-hearted?  Probably not.

Yet, in our commitment to Jesus, we seem to be perfectly content to give him half-hearted love.  It’s like we say to him, “I will surrender myself to you and obey you for the areas I want to and the other areas of my life that I don’t want to let go of, those are mine to do with what I please.  Faithfulness to you Jesus on my terms.”

And when rough times come and trials invade our lives, we begin to question if this relationship with Jesus is really worth it. 

Jesus has betrothed Himself to a bride.  He has invited each one of us into a relationship with Him.  He’s "proposed" and wants a surrendered bride; a whole-hearted bride who is in love with her groom; a bride who will stay faithful no matter the cost. 

Revelation 19:6 tells us that Jesus will have a bride who has made herself ready~ she’s counted the cost and He is worth it!  She’s surrendered her heart wholly, because He is worth it!  She seeks His face and lives in single heart devotion to His Word, not picking and choosing what she wants to obey. She shows her love to her Bridegroom King by complete loyalty, faithfulness and obedience. 

If you have held back areas of surrender to Jesus, let Him have those areas now.  He can be trusted with your heart.  He is fully committed to you; whole-hearted toward you. He sees you as beautiful.   “Just as a young man commits himself to his bride….God will rejoice over you as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,” Isaiah 62:5