God is FOR the transformation of His adopted into the likeness of of His only begotten Son. God is FOR marriages reflecting the greatness of the gospel. God is FOR parents raising their children to know, love, and fear Him. We know these things. Given that we know these things, then the question for me is not so much God is with me in all my individual pursuits, decisions, and endeavors; it’s whether or not I am with Him. Because He’s not going to change.

Life is about making decisions.
From the moment we wake up, we start doing it. We decide whether to hit snooze or not. We decide what to have for breakfast. We decide which route to take to work. And then we keep deciding all the rest of the day. We make decisions about work, about money, about our families, and everything in between. True, some of these decisions are so common and everyday that we don’t even think about making them any more. But every once in a while, we come up against a larger decision – one that requires a pro / con list, much prayer, and the advice of many counselors.
I’d like to think that these bigger decisions don’t cause me as much angst as they once did, and perhaps they don’t, but even so – at the end of most days, even the ones without the big decisions, I find myself thinking something like this:
I sure hope that was the right decision.

I sure hope that was the right conversation to have.
I sure hope that was the right life transition to make.
I sure hope I didn’t add to many counseling bills to my kids’ future right there.

Those times I think I’m expressing a sentiment that is pretty common in the life of the Christian. At the core of all those “I hope’s” is another “I hope”:
I hope God was with me in that decision.
Now I know what you’re thinking, because it’s the same thing I’m thinking as I write this – God was, of course, with me, because the presence of God doesn’t ebb and flow like the tide. He has sealed Himself to me (and to you, if you’re a believer in Jesus) with the promise of the Holy Spirit in our lives. So of course God is with us. But in these particular circumstances, “with” isn’t so much a question of presence as it is support. What I’m really hoping is that God is in favor of the decision that I’ve made and will bless it.
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Written by David H. Lauten |
Sunday, February 26, 2023
Our spiritual forebears saw the day of worship as a great market day for the soul where we taste the spiritual delicacies of God’s Word. On the first day of the week, we take in the sweetness and strength of the friendship of God’s people. Resting from the cares of the workaday world we are renewed as we sing his praise and pray with his people. This world holds out big promises to those who will follow in its ways. But the husks of this world never satisfy. 

Five thousand to upward of fifteen to eighteen thousand gather to enjoy market festivities each Saturday in the center of the city where I live. Fresh produce, fabulous meat, home-spun leather backpacks, and delicious kombucha are among the items which line the streets for would-be buyers along with their many furry friends. The tastings, browsing, chatting all make the market great fun. A market friend recently described her day atthe market as a “delight.”
God invites us to find our joy in him. The prophet Isaiah (58) knew that the cure for the “gloom” of the people who lived in “scorched places” is tethered to their finding their pleasure in their relationship with God. That we may know him and enjoy him, God has given us a special weekly gift, the Lord’s Day. Isaiah calls the people to rejoice in the Sabbath Day, to call it a delight (58:13). 
This day is set aside from ordinary work for worship, rest,and service to others. This weekly pattern of work six days a week and rest on a seventh goes back to creation when God Almighty “rested” on the seventh day. God gave his good instruction to Moses, and all who call upon him, to remember the Sabbath Day. For many years this day of worship, rest and mercy ministry was on Saturday, the last day of the week.
When Jesus who is Lord of the Sabbath arose from the grave on the day following the Sabbath, the day of worship changed from the last day of the week to the first one. On the day of Resurrection, Sunday, we begin our week resting and remembering Jesus’ resurrection. 
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The conventional wisdom holds that spending your twenties focusing on education, work and fun, and then marrying around 30 is the best path to maximize your odds of forging a strong and stable family life. But the research tells a different story, at least for religious couples. Saving cohabitation for marriage, and endowing your relationship with sacred significance, seems to maximize your odds of being stably and happily married.

The traditional model of marriage — not always honored in practice, but as the societal ideal — was to marry young without living together first, and with the aim of a lifetime commitment. The supposedly sophisticated critique of this model has argued that young people should do other things besides form families, that one should try on multiple relationships first, that 21-25-year-olds aren’t mature enough for lifetime commitments, and that living together first is a good test run of whether the relationship will endure. As sociology professor and National Marriage Project director W. Bradford Wilcox explains, however, his latest empirical study along with demographer Lyman Stone supports the traditional view, not that of its critics — at least among religious Americans, who may start off with the advantage of taking marriage more seriously in the first place:
Our analyses indicate that religious men and women who married in their twenties without cohabiting first…have the lowest odds of divorce in America today. We suspect one advantage that religious singles in their twenties have over their secular peers is that they are more likely to have access to a pool of men and women who are ready to tie the knot and share their vision of a family-focused life. Today, young singles like this are often difficult to find in the population at large…Shared faith is linked to more sexual fidelity, greater commitment and higher relationship quality. One Harvard study found that women who regularly attended church were about 40% less likely to divorce. The family-friendly norms and networks found in America’s churches, mosques and synagogues make religion one of the few pillars of strong and stable marriages in America today.
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