Love Series: Marriage Then Love?

I should be able to write what I want on this blog without being attack. Sometimes I am sharing thoughts, like the post about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. I was watching Tom’s latest movie and thinking about he and his ex-wife. But everything I write seems to be taken personally. But again, this is MY blog and it’s a free country, so I can write what I want. Hopefully, I won’t get attacked on this one

As I was doing a little research on Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes I ran into some interesting information about the most successful marriages. It would seem that the marriages that last the longest would be the ones where the couple falls madly in love right? Wrong. The most successful marriages are the ones that many eastern cultures still practice and those are ARRANGED marriages. That really got my attention and got me to thinking.

I truly believe that God is the ultimate matchmaker and He is the one who ultimately knows who and what is best for us, even if we can’t see it. The western way of getting together i.e. dating etc. doesn’t seem to work. In the United States 45-50% of marriages end in divorce and that includes people who profess Christianity. There is no difference. Now look at this next statistic: in India, where arranged marriages are still the practice, 1.1% of the marriages end in divorce!!! And it has nothing to do with divorce not being a part of the culture. It has to do with the fact that the marriages are arranged. The article I was reading, said that Americans have unrealistic aspirations about love and marriage, which are quickly dashed  2-3 months after the marriage. (I know for one couple, it happened right on the honeymoon).

An Indian couple married for 55 years said Americans have it backwards. He said marriage comes first, then love. lol. That made me laugh so hard. If you told an American that, they would think you were crazy. So do I agree with the arranged marriage? I do, but in the sense of God being the matchmaker. And He can say this is the best person for you, and you feel no emotion about God’s choice at all, at first. So is that a good way to marry? I think God’s way is the best way, which may not include some great passionate feeling at first that will only fizz out a month after marriage. But I do think if God said it, He knows that relationship will end in love. And I believe you should be in love when you marry. But it may not start like that AT ALL.

I am not going to rule out the will of God because I don’t feel it when it comes. I have learned what we feel in our heart and emotions can deceive us. So I trust God, and accept HIS choice whomever that is and whenever he comes.

http://www.newsplex.com/news/headlines/15647947.html

Genesis 2:20-25

New International Version (NIV)

²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam^[a] no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs^[b] and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then theLord God made a woman from the rib^[c] he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

²³ The man said,

“This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’
for she was taken out of man.”

²⁴ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

²⁵ Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

The Life of Pi

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know I am a big movie goer and often God will use what I see to speak to me.

Recently I went to see the LIfe of PI and I had no intention of seeing this movie. When I see a trailer for a movie, I can pretty much tell if it’s a movie I want to see and when I saw the trailer for this one, I had no desire to see it. But the other day, I heard a still small voice that told me to see it because there was a message in it. After I saw the movie, I have to say it wasn’t a bad movie at all, but I didn’t get the message immediately.

As I thought about it later on that evening, I knew the message God was trying to speak to me. Without spoiling the movie, sometimes people establish connections with people that they think will last for a lifetime, but in the end what and who they thought they had will just walk away because their nature has not changed. God used this movie to show me that a connection I was concerned about was just that fragile.

I will give the movie a C+. If you want to see a story you have never seen on-screen before, you’ll enjoy this movie. It was a very different movie.