By HOW TO FALL IN LOVE AGAIN
Jimmy Evans
One thing many people don’t know is that I’m a licensed pilot. Some people don’t like to fly, but I personally don’t have any fear of flying—even when I’m in the cockpit. Why? Because I understand that flying is safe as long as you respect the laws of aerodynamics.
Planes don’t just fall out of the air for no reason. When a plane crashes, it’s because something caused it to violate the laws of aerodynamics.
Marriages don’t just end, either. Marriages crash when the couple stops following the laws God built around marriage. God created marriage, and when He creates something, he creates it for success, founding it on the laws of His kingdom and the laws of His word.
One of those laws is the Law of Pursuit. In the Garden of Eden, He said, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24).
The word cleave in this context means “to pursue with all energy.” It’s an energetic word. It means that marriage is work. From the very beginning, God told us marriages would require work.
Karen and I have discovered that our marriage is great as long as we work at it. But a lot of people seem to think that marriage should be easy. That common belief has led to several misconceptions about marriage.
The first is that positive, loving emotions will be automatic. If we marry the right person, people think, passion will be effortless. We’ll marry our soul mates, and we’ll wake up every day more in love than the day before.
The truth is that soul mates aren’t born. They’re made. You become soul mates when you roll up your sleeves and go through hard times together. You become soul mates when you commit to your relationship and work to improve it—even when the emotions aren’t there.
Another misconception is that good times fuel a marriage forever. Some couples hope positive events, romantic experiences, or even the honeymoon can serve as long-term fuel for their emotions. They’ll take a trip to Hawaii and expect to coast on it for years.
Again: Not true. The reality is that marriage is like the manna God provided the children of Israel. They had to gather it up every day. When they tried to store it, God caused it to rot because He wanted them to depend on Him daily.
Love is a perishable commodity, and yesterday’s love is worthless. You can’t accumulate “points.” You can’t coast on big moments in the past. Your love has to be renewed every single day. Marriage is a day-to-day relationship, which means we need to love each other and invest in each other on a daily basis.
A third misconception is that falling out of love is final. Karen and I reached a point where we had fallen out of love with each other. We thought we’d made a mistake. We didn’t like each other anymore. We didn’t know what to do.
When the church at Ephesus neglected God, He told them they could return to their first love by doing the things they did at first (Rev. 2). That’s what Karen and I did. We began to pursue each other again. We spent time with each other. We talked. We worked at the relationship. We did the things we had done when we first began dating. Before long, our passion had been restored.
That can happen for your marriage, too.
God created marriages to thrive as long as the couple follows His laws, starting with the Law of Pursuit. Marriage requires work. Are you willing to pursue your spouse?
