Change is tough.

My husband and I had a challenging discussion last month about whether or not we should switch churches. The church we were attending was not awful or offensive, we just felt led to attend elsewhere. We didn’t know where we were going or what exactly we were looking for, we just had a strong feeling we needed something different for our family. This brought us to a small, growing church. What impressed us most was not the music or the aesthetics, it was the sincerity of the messages, the openness of the people, and an environment that felt charged with the Holy Spirit. It is a recent message at this new church that inspires this post. We have just finished a series on the role of the church and what God expects from this collection of people that make up the bride of Christ. It was so inspiring to me, I found myself seeing things from a new perspective and finding areas in my life that I needed to work on. One thing that has stuck with me and been fermenting in my mind is the relationship of marriage as a reflection, a representation, of Christ’s relationship with the church. This is not a ground breaking discovery, in fact it is something the Christian community has largely been aware of for quite some time. What has been happening in my mind, however, is a realisation of how many things that affect our marriage, whether it be good or bad, can equally affect my relationship with Christ. Incredible as it is that marriage was created as an earthly and imperfect representation of the church and Christ, thousands of years before Christ was even born, it is still more interesting the that intricacies of marriage are almost exact mirrors to the intricacies of the relationship between Christ and church. I was on the phone today talking about how making changes in my walk with God is not always something I want to do, sometimes it seems less daunting to stay the same and ignore my conscience. Then I was thinking about my marriage, how I have dedicated myself (and fail constantly) to making changes in myself to improve my marriage, trusting my husband to respond appropriately (which doesn’t always happen because he is, after all, human). Why, then, am I so hesitant to change for Christ? the Groom of the church community to which all Christians belong? It is hard to understand how I more easily place that kind of trust in a human man who is bound to fail me and disappoint me, but I am so hesitant to place the equal amount of trust in a person who is perfect and will never fail me. How is it so hard to grasp that concept? Changing in the context of my Christian walk should be infinitely easier than changing for my marriage. As inseparable as the two things are, as intrinsically as they are linked, I am continually placing my trust in the wrong one. Change outside of Christ is arguably impossible. It makes sense to me why so many marriages apart from God fail, because the two things were never meant to be separated. Because having Christ at the centre helps us focus more clearly on what needs to happen between our two imperfect, failing, sinning selves. I can honestly say that even in my marriage, where Christ is present. I still find myself struggling to be the person I should be, I still find myself wanting to quit sometimes, because change is hard. Being married to someone who will let me down is hard. And that is with Christ in the middle to shield me from some of the hurt. I am so thankful that Christ and my husband have the grace and mercy to constantly forgive my fumbling attempts. I am thankful that I have the blueprint for my marriage in the bible, guidelines for me through instruction for the church. Everything that Christ expects from the church should be mirrored in my life in my marriage. How doesn’t anyone make it without these tools?