For a forgiven people, we can still be terribly bad at coping with our imperfection. I can be terribly bad at coping with the fact that, though redeemed, I am still deeply and pervasively imperfect.

My remaining imperfections regularly, even daily, disrupt and corrupt my thoughts, decisions, and conversations. How do you respond when you’re forced to see those same sins in the mirror again — the ones you have confessed, fought, and even overcome — only to have to rise, confess, and fight again? As God mapped out our narrow paths to glory, he chose that imperfection would be our constant (and unwanted) companion.

When I say imperfection, I’m not talking about unrepentant sin. “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. . . . No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:8–9). Unrepentant sin should disturb us until we genuinely repent and receive mercy. It should unnerve us enough to keep us awake at night. It should ruin our mental health. God will not abide in any soul where sin still reigns.

He does, however, live in souls where sin remains. In fact, every person he chooses is still darkened by some imperfection. Our remaining sin is forgiven and expiring — the day we die will be the last day we sin — but our remaining sin is still very real, and powerful, and ugly. Almost unbearably ugly at times. How could this selfishness, or impatience, or lust, or laziness, or envy possibly still entangle me?

Because God has chosen, for now, that the forgiven still be imperfect.

Well Acquainted with Imperfection

So what does a godly life of imperfection look like?

The apostle Paul was aware of his own imperfection. “Not that I have already obtained this” — the resurrection of his glorified body — “or am already perfect. . . ” (Philippians 3:12). Even as an apostle, he was acutely aware of just how not-yet he was. He knew he was an unconditionally elected, irresistibly loved, blood-bought, Spirit-filled work-in-process. An unfinished apostle. Paul was fully aware that he was not yet what he would soon be.

He was aware of his imperfections, but not paralyzed by them. “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). He didn’t just sit back and wait for his resurrection to come, but pressed on to make it his own, from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18). Knowing that God would one day make him fully righteous at the resurrection, he was all the more hungry to grow in righteousness until that day. He worked out his salvation — he really, diligently worked, with fear and trembling — for he knew that God was at work — really at work — in him (Philippians 2:12–13).

Forgiveness, for Paul, was not an excuse to make peace with sin, but drove him further into war against sin. He didn’t see his imperfection as a reason to settle for less righteousness; he saw his imperfection as motivation for more righteousness — for more of Christ. And so he pressed on to have it, to have him.

Ambitious Imperfection

In the next two verses, the apostle draws us further into his earnest, focused, and imperfect pursuit of holiness:

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. [I am not the glorified man I want to be.] But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13–14)

What does he do in the face of all his many imperfections? He presses on. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on.” This is a picture of godly and ambitious imperfection in Christ — not clinging to a sense of self-righteousness or wallowing in the pit of self-pity, but pressing on to know more of Christ, to enjoy more of Christ, to live more like Christ.

To press on is unavoidably uncomfortable. It means meeting and overcoming resistance. The same word is used (in the same chapter) for persecution (Philippians 3:6). This pursuit of holiness is a steady, and at times aggressive, pursuit, a resilient pursuit, a determined pursuit. It’s not surprised by opposition or undone by setbacks. It’s a straining forward, he says. It keeps taking the next step toward godliness, even when the steps sometimes feel small or slow or sideways.

This resolve to press on is clarified and intensified by three life-changing mindsets — a disciplined forgetfulness, a focused longing, and an ambitious sense of security.

Disciplined Forgetfulness

We don’t often associate forgetfulness with faithfulness. Yet Paul says he presses on, “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.” The word for forgetting is the same word used in Matthew 16, when the disciples forgot to bring bread on one of their trips with Jesus (Matthew 16:5). Paul’s forgetting, however, is no accident; it’s deliberate.

So what does Paul deliberately forget? Earlier in the chapter, he catalogues his proud attempts at self-righteousness, the ways he mocked God by trying to please God on his own (Philippians 3:5–6). He knows how sinful he once was: “I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent” (1 Timothy 1:13). But grace broke through his hardness, interrupted his defiance, and led him to Jesus (1 Timothy 1:13–15). So what would he do now with the evil he had done? He consciously leaves it behind.

Everyone forgiven by God carries the memories of awful, shameful sin. Our past apart from Christ, whatever past we have, is dark enough to make any of us despair. And Satan fights hard to see that it does. He’s an accuser by vocation (Revelation 12:10). He wants us to forget all that would lift and satisfy our souls — and to remember anything that makes us question God’s love for us. And we each give him plenty to work with.

To defy him, we have to learn to forget what God has forgiven — like the loaves of bread the disciples left behind. We can’t let the sins of our past, or even the sins we’re presently battling, keep us from stepping forward, by the Spirit, into greater obedience and faithfulness today.

Focused Longing

One way to forget the regrets that would undo us is to focus on what God has promised to those he has forgiven in Christ. “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

“The strength to endure imperfection comes from treasuring the one who died for our imperfection.”

What does lie ahead for the imperfect but forgiven? What is the prize of the upward call of God? The not-yet perfect apostle tells us earlier in the chapter, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). Knowing Jesus is the blazing fire under Paul’s persistent pursuit of holiness. Every other prize pales next to having him. Christ himself is the prize of the Christian life, the one reward worth all our obedience and sacrifice, our pearl of great price. The strength to endure imperfection comes from treasuring the one who died for our imperfection.

Can we not bear imperfection a little longer, and keep battling our remaining sin a little longer, if we know that at the end of our short, hard race here on earth is fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11) — a wreath that will always satisfy and never perish (1 Corinthians 9:24–25)?

Christ Made You His Own

A third life-changing mindset, and the most crucial, is hiding in verse 14: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Two verses earlier, he says, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” The redeemed life of imperfection is a captured life of imperfection.

We can keep striving to lay hold of holiness only because we know that Holiness himself has laid hold of us — and he will never let go. If you belong to him, your imperfections are imperfections purchased and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Any not-yet-ness you find in yourself is an opportunity to remember what he paid to make you his own — as you are, sins and all — and to remember that everything ugly about you, your sins and all, will one day be made whiter than snow and brighter than the sun.

“To be sure, you are not what you will be, but even as you are, Christ has made you his own.”

In the next verse, verse 15, the apostle writes, “Let those of us who are mature” — or “perfect,” same root word as in verse 12: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect” — “Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you” (Philippians 3:15). In other words, let those of you who are complete in Christ know you are incomplete. Let those of you who are mature know you are imperfect — and chosen, and bought, and captured, and loved. To be sure, you are not what you will be, but even as you are, Christ has made you his own.

So press through your imperfections into holiness, forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward toward all that lies ahead, so that you might experience and enjoy more of Jesus.

Patience is a virtue we admire, and even aspire to, from afar. The closer it comes to us, however — the more it invades our schedule, our plans, our comfort — the more uncomfortable it becomes.

Patience exists only in a world of disruption, delays, and disappointment. It grows only on the battlefield. We cannot practice patience unless our circumstances call for it — and the circumstances that call for it are the kinds of circumstances we wouldn’t choose for ourselves. We would choose convenience, speed, efficiency, fulfillment. God often chooses circumstances that call for patience. And he never chooses wrongly.

Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives. Impatience is a war for control. Patience, on the other hand, springs from different soil — from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control, from a deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on all of his promises, from a heart that is profoundly happy to have him.

“The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God.”

In other words, the deepest patience comes from a humble and hopeful joy in God above all else. That means that real patience is not only inconvenient, difficult, and wearying, but, humanly speaking, impossible. The kind of patience that honors God is so hard that we cannot practice it without help from God. It grows only where the Spirit lives (Galatians 5:22–23).

Many Shades of Patience

What might we say, then, practically speaking, about real patience in real life? Where could we look in Scripture to see some of the colors and texture of patience in action? One verse, in particular, humbles me and bursts with lessons for everyday patience:

We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1 Thessalonians 5:14)

The ways we approach each group — the idle, the fainthearted, the weak — are different, but we’re called to patience with them all. Which means we’re likely going to experience temptation to be impatient with them all (and many more besides them). So what might patience look like in each case?

Help the Weak

The weak test our patience because they need more from us than most. Many of us have an impulse, at least in the moment, to step in when we see a weak person in need, whether that person is young, or old, or sick, or emotionally or spiritually vulnerable. But weakness, we all know from personal experience, rarely stays contained within a moment, which means the weak need more than in-the-moment help; they need for-the-long-haul help — and for-the-long-haul help requires patience.

Paul does not charge the church to admonish the weak, but to help them, and the word for help here can also mean to hold firm or be devoted. There’s a tenaciousness in this help, a clinging to the weak, even after months or years of inconvenience and sacrifice. Where does that kind of patience come from? From knowing that “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6) — in other words, he died for us. And that “God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27) — in other words, he chose us.

Those who know how painfully and helplessly weak they are apart from God are more ready to endure the weaknesses of others. They don’t resent helping for the hundredth time, because they gladly trust and submit to God’s plans, including the weaknesses he has placed around them.

Encourage the Fainthearted

The fainthearted test our patience because they get more easily discouraged than most. Among the Thessalonians, some were beginning to wither while they grieved the loss of loved ones (1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11). Discouragement was drying up their spiritual strength and resolve — and so they needed more from others (who were also likely grieving).

The fainthearted lack the strength or stamina others have in relationships and ministry. They bring burdens they cannot carry by themselves. They often despair of their burdens, struggling to see how life will ever be more bearable. And we all already have our own burdens to bear, so regularly speaking grace into someone else’s emotional and spiritual needs can feel especially taxing over time. The ministry of encouragement often requires unusual endurance.

Those who keep walking with the fainthearted, even when the path is slow and winding, demonstrate the strength of a supernatural patience. They have discovered, first for themselves, and then through themselves for others, that

[God] gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:29–31)

Anyone who has experienced the gift of strength and renewal longs for other fainthearted people to experience the same. And how much sweeter when God strengthens and renews someone through us?

Every Christian experiences discouragement, which means every Christian needs a steady stream of courage to endure suffering, to reject temptation, to sacrifice in love, to embrace discipline, to persevere in ministry, to trust and obey God. And those streams run low or even dry in churches when we lack the patience needed to persevere in encouraging one another.

Rebuke the Idle

It’s not hard to see how the idle test our patience. In the case of the Thessalonians, it seems, some thought Jesus was returning imminently, and so they started shirking their work and leaving it to others (2 Thessalonians 2:1–2; 3:6).

The idle test our patience because they refuse to take responsibility and initiative. They could do more, help more, carry more, contribute in more significant ways, but they’re content to do just enough (or less), which means someone else has to do more. And when we are that someone, we understandably grow impatient.

But Paul doesn’t let the impatient off the hook, even with the idle. He does say admonish them — warn them, exhort them, wake them up — even if you have to withhold food for a time (2 Thessalonians 3:10–11) or remove them from fellowship (2 Thessalonians 3:6). Nevertheless, he says to do so with patience. Be patient with them all. What might that mean? We don’t usually associate hard words or painful consequences with patience.

Why of Patience

First, we might ask, Why are we patient, even as we admonish the idle? We’re patient with sinners, in part, because we still are one. The idleness of others — or the greed of others, or the lust of others, or the anger of others, or the vanity of others — is never so evil that we cannot see something of their sin in ourselves. It takes very little imagination for us to see that, apart from an undeserved miracle, we would be them — and perhaps far worse.

Impatience with sinners betrays a small view of God’s mercy toward us. The same apostle that says we should rebuke the idle also says,

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Timothy 1:15–16)

Even our rebukes should be seasoned with a humble awareness of our own sinfulness — of just how wicked we would be without the grace of God.

How of Patience

Knowing why we are patient, even with those we need to rebuke, how do we rebuke with patience? First, it probably needs to be said that good rebuke itself is an evidence of patience. It’s easy to give up on sinners. It’s easy to lash out and tear down someone who has sinned against us. Those who rebuke well — who aim to restore someone through honest and gentle confrontation and correction — demonstrate that they haven’t given up, and that they still have hope that God will grant conviction, forgiveness, reconciliation, and transformation.

Patience in rebuke, though, will also mean a willingness to wait for change. Sanctification can be painfully, sometimes excruciatingly, slow. We shouldn’t expect the slothful to become immediately diligent — or, for that matter, for the proud to become immediately humble, the angry to become immediately kind, the lustful to become immediately pure. We don’t overlook patterns of sin in those we love, or make excuses for their sin. We go to them, we warn them, we implore them, we even rebuke them sharply, if necessary — and we keep doing so — but we do so knowing, again firsthand, that change often comes slowly. We plant seeds knowing that they may need time to take hold, mature, and eventually blossom.

Patient God for Impatient People

We might welcome the opportunity to rebuke the lazy and negligent, but can we do so with patience? If we can’t, it’s likely because we haven’t meditated enough on the patience of God toward sinners like us — sinners like me.

“God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.”

When Moses pleaded to see God’s glory, what did God reveal about himself? “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Exodus 34:6). He has every reason and right to get angry with us, and yet he’s slow to anger. He’s patient with us, 2 Peter 3:9 says, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” God never asks anyone to be patient who hasn’t already received the infinite riches of his patience.

That doesn’t mean patience isn’t hard. It is. Whether in traffic on the way to work, or in a season of significant transition or uncertainty, or beside the hospital bed of someone we love, patience can require uncomfortable sacrifice and surrender. In the Father’s patience, after all, he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us. As it was at the cross, so it is with us. The painfulness of our patience serves its hidden but beautiful purpose: to call attention to the beauty and power of God’s love.

Today marks forty-nine years since the society-altering, life-plundering, God-mocking decision by the Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade. Since 1973, abortion has essentially been available on demand in America, leaving the lives of the unborn at the precarious whims of people who value their own lives above the lives of their children.

From the beginning, the delivery room has been a sacred and cursed place. Sin invaded the world, and the womb, before the first child was born. When God warned Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children,” Eve had not born a child without pain. Childbirth was never painless. And it was never less than miraculous.

We’re so acquainted (and enamored) with babies now, it’s nearly impossible to imagine what it would have been like to meet the first. To see those first tiny feet. To stroke that first tiny head. To hear those first weak cries. To hold that first tiny frame. Can you imagine bearing your baby, delivering your baby, holding your baby, without having seen a baby before?

“Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord’” (Genesis 4:1). That first birth may have been the most breathtaking in history — the wild inbreaking of a new, unique, and eternal life, woven together by God from the love between that first husband and his wife. The two became one, and then, just as dramatically, three. Birth, for them, was not a choice to make, but a wonder to behold and receive with worship to their Maker.

We, however, live in a society at war over where exactly in those five short words the first baby came to life: “Eve conceived and bore Cain.” At what point was that little boy’s life a life worth preserving and defending?

Bitter Fruit of Abortion

How might that first mother — that first woman to bear the weight and pain and wonder of new life — how might Eve respond if she heard that, just this year, nearly a million mothers in the United States alone refused the life within them? What if someone told her that we kill, on average, thousands of our children every day before they even take a breath? Could she have possibly imagined that the consequences of those first sins would one day bear the bitter and brutal fruit of abortion?

Maybe she could have. That first baby, after all, went on to murder his little brother. Eve felt the sinfulness of sin as pain multiplied within her through pregnancy and delivery, and then she felt the sinfulness of sin even more as she buried her second born. And were the temptations that provoked Cain, and wiped out Abel, all that different from those fueling the abortion industry in our day? Pride, envy, selfishness, resentment, anger, greed.

Because of sin, no child has ever been born into a safe world. Far fewer children, however, have been born into a country as unsafe as ours. The United States, even in 2022, is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person. Clark Forsythe, in his excellent book Abuse of Discretion, writes,

The United States is an outlier when it comes to the scope of the abortion “right.” The United States is one of approximately ten nations (of 195) that allow abortion after fourteen weeks of gestation. . . . When it comes to allowing abortion for any reason after viability, however, the United States is joined only by Canada, North Korea, and China. (126)

“The United States of America in 2022 is still one of the most dangerous places on earth for an unborn person.”

The twin verdicts read on January 22, 1973 did not, as is often assumed, merely permit abortion for the first three months. No, they legalized abortion at every stage of pregnancy, and for almost any reason. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world — only four — that refuses to protect the unborn even after viability. And what defines viability? “Having reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus.” The U.S. and Canada are half of the nations worldwide that will not defend a baby even when that baby could already survive outside the womb. The other two are North Korea and China.

For nearly fifty years now, the United States has made the womb a minefield, and millions of our sons and daughters have become the innocent casualties of our lust for sex, for freedom, for power, for self.

Abuse of Discretion

Roe is the national monument to this decades-long death march.

The surprising, perplexing, overreaching ruling of the seven justices — Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell (White and Rehnquist voted against) — superseded abortion laws at the state level and functionally established a woman’s right to have an abortion at any point of her pregnancy.

In 1970, “Jane Roe” (Norma McCorvey) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, her local district attorney, to challenge a Texas law that prohibited abortion except to save the life of the mother. Forsythe summarizes the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict:

Roe had two essential rulings based on interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which declares, in part, that no state shall deprive any “person” of “liberty.” First, the Justices interpreted “liberty” to include a “right to privacy” and held that abortion is part of the right to privacy. . . . Second, the Court held that the “unborn” are not included with other “persons” protected by the Constitution. (7)

So, a woman’s right to privacy was interpreted to include her right to abortion — despite the fact that the procedure is not done in true privacy (doctors and nurses are involved). And the unborn were not considered living people with rights, despite the wealth of medical information that suggested otherwise (not to mention, the amazing advances in technology since, which only give us better and better windows into all the evidence for real life in the womb).

Kevin DeYoung helpfully distills the myths about Roe that Forsythe exposes in his book. For instance,

Abortion was a common and widely accepted practice throughout history. No, it was rare for most of history because it was exceedingly dangerous.
Roe was based on a careful investigation of the facts. No, the deliberation spent very little time discussing facts, and focused almost exclusively on procedure.
Women were dying by the thousands because of back-alley abortions. No, at that time less than a hundred women died from illegal abortions each year, a fraction of the number reported.
Abortion is safer than childbirth. No, the seven studies that said as much at the time have all been exposed for their lack of medical data, and the short-term and long-term dangers of abortion have only become clearer and clearer, especially to the mental health of the mother.
The American public is polarized over abortion. No, the majority of Americans at the time and still today do not support abortion on demand — abortion at any time for any reason (the precedent Roe instituted).

The more one reads about the decision, the more indefensible it becomes. It really is difficult to overstate how weak the case was for perhaps the most pivotal, controversial, and corrupt verdict in our nation’s history.

The Other Roe: Redefining Health

Alongside Roe, though, was a second, similarly monumental (and yet often overlooked) case: Doe v Bolton. The ruling was handed down the same day, and was every bit as consequential.

“Mary Doe” (Sandra Cano) filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Georgia, Arthur K. Bolton, challenging a law that permitted abortion only in cases of rape, severe fetal deformity, or the possibility of severe or fatal injury to the mother. In the Doe decision, the justices redefined the “health” of the mother from those stricter parameters to “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the wellbeing of the patient. All these factors may relate to health” (Abuse of Discretion, 150). As a result of the decision, “‘Health,’ in abortion law, means emotional well-being without limits” (8).

Functionally, this meant abortion could be justified at any time of the pregnancy for almost any reason. “Where Roe prevented any prohibition on abortion before viability, the Doe health exception eliminated prohibitions after viability as well” (8). Any consequence the mother felt — and bearing a human life is always consequential — became an excuse to end the life. We went from protecting the physical survival of the mother to preserving her sexual freedom and personal autonomy.

Forsythe quotes a Harvard Law Professor,

Doe’s broad definition of “health” spelled the doom of statutes designed to prevent the abortion late in the pregnancy of children capable of surviving outside the mother’s body unless the mother’s health was in danger. By defining health as “well-being,” Doe established a regime of abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy, something that American public opinion has never approved in any state, let alone nationally. (151)

Sandra Cano, it’s worth mentioning, ultimately decided not to have an abortion after she felt her baby kick (94).

The New Roe: Life at Fifteen Weeks

Even if a case were to overturn Roe, that decision in and of itself would not end abortion. Overturning Roe wouldn’t dam the river of child-killing, but it would stem the terrible tide — and unleash possibilities for new pro-life legislation. Ending Roe would return the debate to the states, which would once again give the American people the power to decide — a change faithful Christians and churches welcome and pray for.

As I write, for instance, the Supreme Court has already heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization about a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion after fifteen weeks (an opportunity made possible by new appointees to the Court). The justices are specifically arguing over the question, Are all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions unconstitutional?

“If Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.”

Whatever happens in this case, this is the future of the abortion debate: state by state, election by election, neighborhood by neighborhood advocacy for life. Forsythe reminds us, “If Roe were overturned today, abortion would be legal in at least forty-one states tomorrow, perhaps all fifty. . . . The long-term legality of abortion depends on public opinion” (348, 351). That means that if Roe is overturned, Christians and churches will play an even bigger role in saving human lives.

The Power of Wanted Pregnancy

Wherever the Dobbs case leads, and however long Roe stands, our country desperately needs to recover the sanity and wonder of wanted pregnancy. What might change in our debates, our laws, our clinics, our families if the collective American imagination awakened to the God-soaked miracle of new life?

You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:13–16)

Today, we pause to mourn fifty million lives abandoned — their forming assaulted, their weaving unraveled, their making arrested, their needs discarded, their stories suddenly and violently ended. God will repay what was stolen from them.

But we also pause to pray for him to intervene and interrupt the killing. As personally and specifically and sovereignly as he made each one of us, would he now so personally and specifically and sovereignly tear down the calamity of abortion in our land?

The habit of quiet may be harder today than ever before. Don’t get me wrong: it’s always been hard. The rise and spread of technology, however, tends to crowd out quiet even more.

Now that we can carry the whole wide and wild world in our pockets, it’s that much harder to keep the world at bay. Our phones always promise another update to see, image to like, website to visit, game to play, text to read, stream to watch, forecast to monitor, podcast to download, headline to scan, article to skim, score to check, price to compare. That kind of access, and semblance of control, can begin to make quiet moments feel like wasted ones. Who could sit and be still while so much life rushes by? Even if we don’t immediately pick up our phones, we’re often still held captive by them, wondering what new they might hold — what we might be missing.

As hard as quiet might be to come by, however, it’s still a life-saving, soul-strengthening habit for any human soul. The God who made this wide and wild world, and who molded our finite and fragile frames, says of us, “In quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). In days filled with noise, do you still find time to be this kind of strong? Or has stress and distraction slowly eroded your spiritual health?

How often do you stop to be quiet?

What God Does with Quiet

What kind of quietness produces strength? Not all quietness does. We could sell our televisions, give away our phones, move to the countryside, and still be as weak as ever. No, “in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” The quiet we need is a quiet filled with God. Quietness becomes strength only when our stillness says that we need him.

Be still, and know that I am God.     I will be exalted among the nations,     I will be exalted in the earth! (Psalm 46:10)

This still, trusting quietness defies self-reliance. Quietness can preach reality to our souls like few habits can. It says that he is God, and we are not; he knows all, and we know little; he is strong, and we are weak. Quietness widens our eyes to the bigness of God and the smallness of us. It brings us low enough to see how high and wise and worthy he is.

You can begin to see why quietness can be so hard. It’s deeply (sometimes ruthlessly) humbling. For it to say something true and beautiful about God, it first says something true and devastating about us. Our quietness says, “Without him, you can do nothing.” Our refusal to be quiet, on the other hand, says, “I can do a whole lot on my own” — and that feels good to hear. It just robs us of the real strength and help we might have found.

God strengthens the quiet with his strength, because quietness turns weakness and neediness into worship (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). We get the strength and help and joy; he gets the glory.

But You Were Unwilling

The context of Isaiah’s words, however, is not inspiring, but sobering. God says to his people,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling . . . (Isaiah 30:15–16)

Quietness would have made them strong, but they wouldn’t have it. Assyria was bearing down on Judah, threatening to crush them as it had crushed many before them. And how do God’s people respond?

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction.” (Isaiah 30:1–2)

Even after watching him deliver them so many times before, they cast his plan aside and made their own. They sought help, but not from him. They went back to Egypt (of all places!) and asked those who had enslaved and oppressed them to protect them. And they didn’t even stop to ask what God thought. They did, and did, and did, at every turn refusing to stop, be quiet, and receive the strength and support of God. I would rush to help you, God says, but you were unwilling. You weren’t patient or humble enough to receive my help.

“How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, ‘productivity’ over prayer?”

Why would they refuse the sovereign help of God? Deep down, we know why. Because they felt safer doing what they could do on their own than they did waiting to see what God might do. How often do we do the same? How often do we choose activity over quietness, distraction over meditation, “productivity” over prayer? How often do we try to solve our problems without slowing down enough to first seek God?

Consequences of Avoiding Quiet

Self-reliance is, of course, not as productive as it promises to be — at least not in the ways we would want. The people’s refusal to be quiet and ask God for help not only cut them off from his strength, but also invited other painful consequences.

First, the sin of self-reliance breeds more sin. Again, God says in verse 1, “‘Ah, stubborn children,’ declares the Lord, ‘who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin.” The more we refuse the strength of God, the more we invite temptations to sin. Quiet keeps us close to God and aware of him. A scarcity of quiet pushes him to the margins of our hearts, making room for Satan to plant and tend lies within us.

Second, their refusal to be quiet before God made them vulnerable to irrational fear. Because they fought in their own strength, the Lord says, “A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee” (Isaiah 30:17). A lone soldier will send a thousand into a panic. The whole nation will crumble and surrender to just five men. In other words, you will be controlled and oppressed by irrational fears. You’ll run away when no one’s chasing you. You’ll lose sleep when there’s nothing to worry about. And right when you’re about to experience a breakthrough, you’ll despair and give up. Fears swell and flourish as long as God remains small and peripheral. Quiet time with God, however, scatters those fears by enlarging and inflaming our thoughts of him.

The weightiest warning, however, comes in verse 13: those who forsake God’s word, God’s help, God’s way invite sudden ruin. “This iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.” Confidence in self drove a crack in the strongholds around them — a crack that grew and spread until the walls collapsed on top of them. All because they refused to embrace quiet and trust God.

“In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.”

For Judah, ruin meant falling into the cruel hands of the Assyrians. The walls will fall differently for us, but fall they will, if we let busyness and noise keep us from dependence. In quietness and trust would be our strength; in busyness and pride will be our downfall.

Mercy for the Self-Reliant

In the rhythms of our lives, do we make time to be quiet before God? Do we expect God to do more for us while we sit and pray than we can do by pushing through without him?

If verse 15 humbles us — “But you were unwilling . . .” — verse 18 should humble us all the more. As Judah hurries and worries and strategizes and plans and recruits help and works overtime, all the while avoiding God, how does God respond to them? What is he doing while they refuse to stop doing and be quiet?

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

While we refuse to wait for him, God waits to be gracious to us. He’s not watching to see if he’ll be forced to show us mercy; he wants to show us mercy. The God of heaven, the one before time, above time, and beyond time, waits for us to ask for help. He loves to hear the sound of quiet trust.

Blessed — happy — are those who wait for him, who know their need for him, who ask him for help, who find their strength in his strength, who learn to be and stay quiet before him.

Before you make resolves for the new year — before you start a reading plan, or choose a diet, or buy a journal, or step on a treadmill — find a why worth changing for. As many more have observed before me, our resolutions often wilt because we didn’t have a why big enough to weather the inevitable temptations, distractions, and setbacks.

So what will your why be for the year to come? For me, I want my life to prove the worth of my calling from God. Not my calling to ministry, but my calling to God — the calling every genuine Christian shares. My why comes from 2 Thessalonians 1:11:

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.

What evidence do we see in our lives that we have been called by God? What might someone else see in us this year that would suggest something supernatural has happened? What habits might hint that we have been claimed by heaven? Will we live worthy of our calling — or not?

Could We Ever Be Worthy?

Does a Christian resolution for worthiness rub you the wrong way? “We pray for you that our God may make you worthy of his calling.” But none of us is worthy of this calling. Surely the apostle Paul knew that more than anyone.

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10–12)

“Who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. (Romans 11:35–36)

How could a sinner ever merit anything from God? We can’t. And yet God himself says, through his apostle, that we can be considered — by God — worthy of his calling. What would that mean? Not that we could ever earn or deserve this calling, but that we could increasingly honor the calling we have received by grace alone, based on the merits of Christ alone.

Godliness Honors God

Apart from Christ, we will never deserve to be called children of God, but we can still disgrace the calling we have been freely given — or we can adorn our precious calling with an ambitious godliness. “Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works . . . so that in everything [you] may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:7, 10). Our lives can become a wild, grace-filled bouquet laid upon the saving and sufficient work of Jesus — a worthy reflection of his love, his cross, his power, his worth.

Again, Paul says, “[We pray] that our God may make you worthy of his calling . . . so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ” (2 Thessalonians 1:11–12). This is the worthiness of another world. As it grows and spreads in a redeemed life, it doesn’t welcome praise to itself, but gladly bows to worship Christ. The worthiness God finds in us glorifies the greatness of Jesus.

“Any worthiness God finds in us only glorifies the greatness of Jesus.”

Our worthiness proves his worth, not ours. Why? Because worthiness in us is an evidence and expression of his grace. God makes us worthy “according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” We strive for a worthiness that draws others’ curiosity and admiration not to ourselves, but to him. We want them to think, Someone who lives like that must know something about life, about reality, about God that I don’t yet know. I want to know what they know and love like they love.

Worthiness in Real Life

So what might this worthiness look like in another new year? A few verses earlier, Paul unfolds the worthiness he sees blossoming in the Thessalonian church:

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering. (2 Thessalonians 1:3–5)

How specifically was their worthiness displayed? Their faith and love held fast through suffering. And not just held fast, but grew. And not just grew, but grew abundantly. The apostle could see that God was for them and in them, because they were seeking God with greater intensity, trusting him with greater peace, and loving one another with greater devotion. Greater — greater faith, greater love, greater patience, greater peace, greater discipline, greater joy — greater is a worthy resolve for a new year.

Where, specifically, could you grow abundantly in the next year? What area of your spiritual life and love for others needs to be revived or nurtured toward greater maturity? Find a greater resolve to focus on, and hold onto, as you step into another January.

Made Worthy in the Valley

Don’t miss that the church in Thessalonica was made more worthy through their suffering. “We ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring” (2 Thessalonians 1:4). Their hardships had become a dark and painful backdrop on which their faithfulness could shine.

Would anyone have seen their steadfastness in Christ if they hadn’t experienced adversity? Suffering, for them, offered an opportunity to experience more of God’s strength and mercy, and suffering also made it easier for others to see the God who was motivating and sustaining them.

How might that change how we think about the sufferings that will come over the next year? When our plans and resolves are inevitably disrupted and disappointed, will we assume suffering is only an enemy? Or, in the hands of our God, could suffering actually be a strange and precious friend of our worthiness?

The Who in Good Resolves

New resolves often fail without a well-defined, deeply-felt why, but they also fail because of a misplaced who.

“Before you make any resolves for the new year, find a why worth changing for.”

Look carefully, again, at verse 11: “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power.” Who makes our lives worthy of such a calling? God does. Who fulfills our resolves for good and our works of faith? God does. Whose power will be the decisive agent for lasting change in our lives? His power.

Good resolves begin and end with God. Which means good resolves begin and persevere through prayer. And so Paul does not merely charge the Thessalonians to live worthy of their calling; he prays for them to be made worthy. “To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling. . . .”

So how might we pray for greater faith and love in the new year?

Lord, I am not content to have last year’s love for you. I want a deeper, sweeter, more active faith in you. Nurture what you have planted in my soul. Prune away more of my remaining sin. Make the sufferings to come magnify your work in me. By whatever means necessary, cause me to grow and to grow abundantly. In Jesus’s name and for his greater glory in us, Amen.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, in whatever age you live, you either live to please man or you live to please God. And if you think it’s possible to serve both, you’re likely living to please the former, not the latter.

God is rightly and lovingly jealous for our first and fullest devotion. And every meaningful relationship we have will vie, whether overtly or subtly, to dethrone him. That’s why Jesus says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Sin has a way of making the love and approval of people seem more thrilling and fulfilling than the love and approval of God.

The apostle Paul knew the seduction of the fear of man, and he had learned that no man could serve two masters.

Am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

“If we live to have the praise, approval, and acceptance of others, we cannot belong to Jesus.”

The dichotomy is as striking as it is frightening: we cannot strive to please people and still serve Christ. Now, of course, even Paul himself can say, “I try to please everyone in everything I do” (1 Corinthians 10:33), but only because that love is an expression of his greater allegiance to pleasing God (1 Corinthians 10:31, 33). If we, however, live to have the praise, approval, and acceptance of others, we cannot belong to Jesus.

So do we recognize this deadly temptation in our relationships? Have we, like Paul, died to the approval of man? His letter to the Galatians gives us a tour of the battlefield and some weapons for the fight.

Well-Acquainted with People-Pleasing

Paul can talk personally and intimately about the fear of man because he had once pursued the approval of others. These are the confessions of a former people-pleaser:

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. . . . For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. (Galatians 1:10, 13–14)

His former life illustrates just how destructive the fear of man can be. As he persecuted the church violently — mocking, attacking, imprisoning, even killing believers in Jesus — he garnered a little more attention, a little more approval, a little more praise than his peers. Of course, he would have said he was only striving to please God, and he maybe even thought he was striving to please God, but he sees his hidden motivations more clearly in hindsight.

When Paul says, “If I were still trying to please man. . . ,” the still really matters. He had served the god of people-pleasing, for years and years, and he found him to be a cruel master, a stealer of life and love and joy, a dead end. And in Galatians, he writes to a church tempted to serve the same god.

God of Looking Good

How specifically was people-pleasing infiltrating the church in Galatia? False teachers had crept in, teaching the Gentile believers that they needed to practice the Jewish laws to be saved. We learn, however, that their real concern was not for the church, but for themselves.

They wanted to avoid the Jewish persecution that might come if the Galatians confessed Christ but refused to practice circumcision, dietary regulations, and other distinctly Jewish laws. They also wanted the recognition and praise of the Jewish authorities for converting Gentiles to Judaism. In other words, they feared the rejection and hostility of certain people, and craved their approval and applause. Paul explains,

It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. (Galatians 6:12–13)

Their duplicity is evident. They don’t even keep the law themselves, but they require it of others, because the compliance of others makes them look good. And looking good is their real god.

First Trap: Flattery

Knowing the temptations firsthand, the apostle recognized the influences that were corrupting and undoing the church in Galatia. The false teachers, who were themselves enslaved to the fear of man, were now preying on the Galatians’ desire for acceptance and affirmation. Watch carefully as Paul describes their strategies, because they’re the primary strategies of an awful lot of what we see and hear in the world today.

They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them. (Galatians 4:17)

They begin with flattery, an effective tactic in persuading people-pleasers. As warm as flattery may sound and feel at first, though, flattery is always selfish and always destructive. It distorts reality, erodes trust, and indulges itself at the expense of someone else (Proverbs 26:28). “They make much of you, but for no good purpose.” They sweeten their words to win you without any real concern for you and your good.

The gospel says, “You are worse than you realize, but God’s grace is greater than your sin.” Flattery says, “You’re better than you think, and you’re certainly better than those other people.” If we live for the approval of man rather than God, we make ourselves all the more vulnerable to flattery. People will be able to influence and manipulate us by gratifying our thirst for affirmation.

One way to discern this danger in our personal relationships might be to ask, Do the people who affirm me also regularly challenge me? If they are eager to praise me, are they also willing to correct me?

Second Trap: Rejection

The false teachers used two very different strategies to prey on the Galatians’ fear of man (which reveals how subtle and complex this war can be). Both strategies seize on insecurity, but in opposite ways.

Yes, the Judaizers fawned over these Christians with flattery, but notice how they also threatened to exclude those who didn’t comply. They tried to convince these new believers that they had to adopt certain Jewish laws to be in God’s inner circle. “They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). They’re trying to establish a special and exclusive group of “true” believers. They lure you in by making you feel left out. Did we think cancel culture was new with us? Satan knows that as much as people-pleasers crave the approval of others, they often fear their disapproval even more.

So where are we vulnerable to this fear of exclusion? One way to test ourselves would be to ask, What Christian beliefs are we tempted to hide — about abortion, about sex and sexuality, about ethnicity, about whatever — to fit in with the crowd whose approval we crave? (Note: This could be a crowd in the world or a crowd in the church.) Does our desire for acceptance make us ashamed of anything God says in his word?

Flattery preys on our craving to be admired. This second pressure preys on our fear of being excluded, of being left behind — ultimately, of being alone.

The World Died to Me

So how do we escape these twin traps that the fear of man lays? Having broken free himself, Paul charts a course for those similarly tempted. Freedom from unhealthy people-pleasing requires two great deaths:

[The false teachers] desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:13–14)

First, the world must die to me. What does that mean? When Paul was converted, and left behind his people-pleasing ways, nothing changed in the world. All the same pressures tried to intimidate him into conformity. All the same social expectations rose up around him. All the same risks threatened to isolate and afflict him (or worse). And yet he can still say that one day he met Jesus and the world died before his eyes. The world — all the worldly opinions, desires, applause, and criticism of mere humans — suddenly lost its power over Paul. It was if everything that once controlled him had been nailed to a cross and left there to die.

“For the world to lose its power over us, we have to surrender our craving to please the world.”

How does the world lose that kind of power over us? Through a second, more painful death: I must die to the world. For the world to lose its power over us, we have to surrender our craving to please the world. To follow the crucified Son, we have to crucify our former master (whatever sin had its hold on us). To experience the joy of life in Christ, Paul had to first die to being admired and praised by his peers. He couldn’t enjoy both. “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” So he refused the master that bred fear while stealing life, that increased guilt while decreasing peace, that amplified insecurity while muting love. He chose the better master.

Choosing to live for the approval of God, and not of man, will be costly in this life. Paul was hunted, beaten, robbed, imprisoned, and stoned nearly to death for his choice. And yet he could say, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Not worth comparing. That is the key to overcoming the fear of man. We will die to the comforts of people-pleasing when we realize, with Paul, just how much more satisfying it is to suffer for pleasing God.

Have you ever wondered why history began with a lonely husband?

Why did God make man, and then pause? Why did he parade “every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens” before the man, before finally giving him a bride, a helper, a queen? In a paradise filled with good, there was one glaring not-good: “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18).

Marriage was a late arrival to the garden, and God clearly meant for it to be that way. With meticulous and patient care, he labored to set this wide and wondrous stage called earth, all so that these lines would reverberate, like a pleasant earthquake, through all he had made:

This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. (Genesis 2:23)

Marriage was the consummation, not a last-minute addition — the image of God in flesh and blood, male and female, intimacy and security and procreation. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them” (Genesis 1:27–28). God holds back marriage just long enough for us to feel how colorless a world without marriage would be. And then the wedding comes, and that mounting tension holding the whole earth hostage suddenly resolves — God makes two from one, and then one from two.

The beauty of marriage, however, wasn’t the inspiration for that first love story. God let the lonely man search high and low, near and far, all in vain, to hint at another love, a higher love, a better Groom.

Why Does Marriage Exist?

God let Adam stand uncomfortably long at the altar of creation so that we would long to meet Eve. Then he waited centuries more before sending his own Son to the altar, so that we would long to meet the Bridegroom and love him when he comes. Through the apostle Paul, God himself tells us what he was doing as he officiated that first marriage:

“A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (Ephesians 5:31–32)

“Marriage doesn’t exist to remedy the loneliness of singleness; marriage exists to tell us that we need Jesus.”

Marriage doesn’t exist just to remedy the loneliness of singleness; marriage exists to tell us that we need Jesus. It’s a living exposition of Christ’s relentless and passionate pursuit of his chosen people, the church — and of the church’s restless ache for him. He would not rest until he had her; she would not rest until she had been found by him.

God calls husbands to love their wives in a way that shows the world something of Christ’s delight in us:

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor. (Ephesians 5:25–27)

Likewise, God calls wives to love their husbands in a way that shows the world something of our delight in Christ:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. (Ephesians 5:22–23)

God has made each marriage a canvas for spiritual reality. A wife’s words, attitudes, actions, and decisions either honor or betray the Bride of Christ. A husband’s words, attitudes, actions, and decisions either honor or betray the Bridegroom.

My Delight Is in Her

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, when God reaches again and again for the imagery of marriage to explain the zeal and intensity of his redeeming love. For instance, in Isaiah 54:5–6:

For your Maker is your husband,     the Lord of hosts is his name;and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,     the God of the whole earth he is called.For the Lord has called you     like a wife deserted and grieved in spirit,like a wife of youth when she is cast off,     says your God.

When God conceived of husbands, he wanted us to comprehend something of what he is like. He painted weddings and marriages into his story as illustrations so that he could say to his people, “You shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you” (Isaiah 62:4–5).

God made husbands to delight in their wives so that we might know that God really does delight in us — that we might believe God when he promises, “I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the Lord” (Hosea 2:19–20).

God Walks the Aisle

Though he never married, Jesus knew he was the long-awaited husband of history. He knew his coming was the love the world had waited for.

When the Pharisees came to him and condemned his disciples for not fasting, he said, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast” (Matthew 9:15). For centuries, the bride had watched and waited, wallowing in sin and shame and separation — and then he came. The seed God had planted in the garden finally sprung up in the little-known garden of Bethlehem.

Instead of removing a rib, he now took on ribs and walked the long and lonely aisle to Calvary, “taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7–8). The Bridegroom did not emerge dressed in white, but he was clothed in humility, raised in obscurity, showered with hostility, and then crucified in agony.

The first husband searched and searched to find his bride; this last husband died to have his.

Marriage of the Lamb

We know that marriage — in the garden and today — is meant to prepare us for something beyond marriage because one day marriage will end. “In the resurrection,” the Bridegroom says, “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30). God placed a bride and groom at the center of creation to plant the seed of a future marriage between Christ and his church. When Jesus returns, however, the marriages we have known will give way to the Marriage for which we were made.

“When Jesus returns, the marriages we have known will give way to the marriage for which we were made.”

When Adam came to take Eve, he sang, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” When Jesus comes to take his church, the nations will sing, “like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder,”

Hallelujah! For the Lord our God     the Almighty reigns.Let us rejoice and exult     and give him the glory,for the marriage of the Lamb has come,     and his Bride has made herself ready;it was granted her to clothe herself     with fine linen, bright and pure. (Revelation 19:6–8)

An angel will declare, “Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9). The joy of a husband who finally finds his wife has always been a whisper of the thrill we will feel when this great and final wedding comes.

God gave us marriage so that he might one day give us to Christ. God gave us wives so that we might see something of the beauty he sees in his church. God gave us husbands so that we might see something of the courage, strength, and love in his Son.