here's nothing like a good wedding! For the parents, a wedding is a chance to "showcase" their son/daughter in pride and love. For the wedding party, there is the honor of being associated with the bride and groom as their closest friends. For the bride and groom, the wedding offers a chance to declare their love for one another. For the rest of us, it's a time to experience joy, good food, dance, and be generous to people we love.
God must love a good wedding. In fact, one of the first things we know about the public life of Jesus is he attended a wedding where he turned water into wine, his first miracle. He celebrated with the family, and those in attendance. Nothing implies that he skipped out of the party early either. A good wedding, however, is more than fun and entertainment. It is meant to give thanks to the God who brings people together and makes it possible for them to love one another. A wedding is meant to ask God's blessing upon the two people making a commitment to one another. You know the wedding is a good one when two people get serious, look one another in the eye and make promises which they intend to keep for the rest of their lives. Even more though, a wedding is great when everyone in attendance goes away reminded of the power of love and sacrifice in human relationships. But the wedding itself is not all there is to it either. It is only a still photograph in the video of life. There's a lot of living to do after the wedding is over. The wedding is relatively easy to make happen, even a good wedding. It's in the marriage that the wedding commemorates where the challenges begin. More than once God has been invited to a wedding through the prayers, the music, and the liturgy of the ceremony, and soon after ushered out of the marriage - forgotten, dismissed, replaced. What does it mean to invite God to a marriage? What difference would it make if He were an invited guest? You know God has been invited into a marriage when the two people (husband and wife) make a daily effort to acknowledge His presence through prayer and declarations of worship and reverence. You know God is present if you see two people who treat one another with consummate respect and care, who make it their priority to encourage and build one another in love, and who find strength and courage to take on the tough moments of conflict and resolve them in confession and forgiveness. You know God is a guest in a marriage when you see two people who believe that, while making one another happy is important, they pursue higher goals like serving in the larger world in ways that bring value to their generation. It is clear God is a guest in the marriage where the home is marked with peace, tranquility and hospitality, and where kindness, order, and generosity endure. When a couple leaves God behind at the wedding, anything may happen. If a couple invites God along on their marriage, great things will happen. He's promised. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12: "Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it's just too bad, because there is no one to help him. If it is cold, two can sleep together and stay warm, but how can you keep warm by yourself? Two people can resist and attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break." Check out Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctionsfor all of your holiday gifts! **************************************************************** This mail is generated from JOYnet, a Jesus Youth mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to this mailing list, visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet For automatic help, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In case of any issue related to the mailing list contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ****************************************************************
