Eighteen years ago today, I was married.
A little over a year ago, I was told that I would not be alive on this day to celebrate this anniversary. Therefore, it is a very blissful 18th.
Since then life has taken its twists and turns, leading me to the place we call the present. While there are things I would change if I could, I would not change the person with whom I was doing it with.
Whether it was being in school or even having cancer, with Tina - it is a Wonderful Life.
As I look back across our marriage, I am confronted with something that many married couples do just as Christians do when discussing God - they think and dwell upon what they call, 'the good old days.'
For married couples, I really don't know what that means.
Is it before children? Is it the time when the people were younger?
Is it the present and they just don't know it?
It is as difficult to define as it is to describe.
Yet, I do know what it means when Christians say they wish things could go back to 'the way things were.'
You probably know it as well - a time when God dwelt atop a mountain and you could see the smoke ascending with the fire blazing.
A time when manna was provided to eat and God's will revealed in the Law plainly and clearly.
I do not understand this just like I don't understand the 'old days' of marriage.
Why in the world would anyone want to go back to that time period when today, instead of seeing God on a mountain or hearing His voice - we may have God Himself dwelling within us?
The problem is that we don't really know the value of what we have.
For example, it is a tragic marriage when a person attempts to struggle with the other for power. That marriage is either going to fail or to leave one of the people in it, absolutely miserable.
Marriage, a healthy marriage, is a relationship where two people submit to one another. It is never a struggle for superiority but a journey together as God makes us One in His Union.
It is in that Union where we find great value.
Similarly, the Union we have with Christ by His Spirit dwelling within us is absolutely unsurpassed by anything known in ancient times.
Why in the world would we go back to a time before the Resurrection?
Why would we go back to a day before Pentecost?
Today, we have the best of all worlds because the Holy Spirit, God Himself, dwells within the believer.
That being true, shouldn't that mean that God's will for our lives and our churches is absolutely crystal clear? I wish that was true, but it isn't; as evidenced by over 1,200 Christian denominations.
But there is a difference in us from the ancients.
New Testament Christians are weaned children.
We are expected to grow up, we are expected to mature.
We are expected to work and serve for the glory of the Lord.
The Old Testament believers never understood nor practiced this idea.
In the OT, the people never grew up.
The people who trusted God wandered in the desert for 40 years, then it came time to enter the Promised Land. As they did so, on the very day they crossed over and began to eat of the produce of the land, the manna from heaven which had been supplied to them by the hand of God, stopped and would never return.
From that time forward, they were expected to plant for a harvest rather than be on God's welfare role.
And do you know what these people did?
They stopped worshiping the Lord who delivered them from slavery and began to worship fertility gods of the land so that their crops might be blessed.
Just like the transformation a single person goes through to become 'One' with their spouse over the years, when God stopped being visible on the Mountain and began to dwell within His children, transformations of great proportion have taken place.
There is no question that the moment God, through the Holy Spirit, chose to dwell within His people that by the nature of His existence, it would create doubt because the people could no longer physically see Him..
They could no longer see the smoke and fire on the Mountain nor could they see a Nazarene teaching on a hillside and healing people.
This way of relating to His people was indeed different, but it is an improvement.
You see, in the 'old days' all who heard His voice, heard it and was afraid of it - but only for a while.
It wasn't long that those who heard His voice soon learned to ignore it.
Now, in a similar manner, the Holy Spirit within is also easy to ignore.
Scripture informs us that we can 'quench' the Holy Spirit. It also tells us that through our actions and attitudes, we can 'grieve' the Holy Spirit.
Yet, the upside is that unlike the days of the past, having the Holy Spirit within us is the most intimate relationship ever established between God and man.
As such, we are becoming to be more like Him and through us, He lives and acts on this earth.
In our weaknesses, He intercedes on our behalf - even to the point where He groans for us when we don't know how to pray.
In our marriages, there are joys and disappointments; but through love and guidance and trust, we overcome and drive on together.
In our spiritual lives, when we have those same disappointments and trials, we often want God to appear and guide us personally.
Granted, when we have those times of troubles, having the Holy Spirit within may not remove all the times of disappointment we have and it may not instantly reassure us of God's truth; but the Holy Spirit has a wider scope of ministry than just being present to show us the existence of God like the smoke of Mount Sinai did for the Israelites.
The Holy Spirit is called the 'Helper' in the New Testament; His very name implies the fact that believers will have problems. It teaches us that God has sent Himself as our helper in every time of need.
And the one thing the Holy Spirit does in those times of trials and disappointments that surpasses times of old is the fact that He does not vanquish them immediately from our lives. Instead, God allows troubles to sometimes rage while at the same time He reminds us that those troubles are only temporary.
The peace God brings now is a prelude to the day when His rest and peace reigns for ever as we live our lives eternal before Christ Himself.
And while we wait on that day when eternity is ushered into the world, I am thankful that I have a small piece of heaven on earth today with my wife and children.
Until next time, try to win one for the good guys.
