Previously I was concentrating on my job and thinking about my future.
But now my thoughts were of Audrey and our
future. Unfortunately though because she lived 300 kilometres away from
where I lived it was not possible to see her each afternoon when I knocked off
work, and as I lived on a property out from Bourke in western N.S.W. there was
no telephone connected and this was before they invented mobile phones (if you
are young, can you imagine what that would be like?). Therefore, although I was
not a letter writer, I found myself writing to her every evening, or should I
say adding a half page to the letter I would post when the mailman called in at
the property at the end of the week. After writing my half page or so, I would
re-read her last letter and picture her writing it. During the day I would be
working of course, but my mind was far away thinking about this beautiful girl
and looking forward to seeing her again, or receiving a letter from her when
the mailman arrived.
After Audrey and I were married we both got involved in quite
a number of organisations and got to know lots of people, but my heart’s desire
was always to be in Audrey’s company. The bible says that a husband should love
his wife, as the two become one, and that is just as I have found it to be. I
know that not all marriages succeed as ours has, and that is why Moses allowed
for divorce, thousands of years ago, but Jesus said it was never meant to be
that way.
If you are wondering why I have shared this with you. Well it
is because in the fifth chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesian Christians we
find him saying: “Husbands love your
wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it”. The
word “church” here means Christian
people, not a building or a particular denomination, but you and me. Oh how we
are loved!
For my part I love my wife so much that I would gladly die
for Audrey if the need arose. For His part, Christ has already shown that He
loved us so much that He was prepared to die for us when the need arose. He has
therefore earned our love and immense gratitude. Of course this loving
gratitude for what He did will only come into our hearts if we can visualise
the dreadful torment in Hell from which we have been delivered (as described in
the bible) and what horrific suffering He went through for you and me in order to
achieve that deliverance! Indeed the
bible says “We love Him because He first
loved us” (1 John 4:19). Those
who don’t make it to Heaven will be “cast
out into outer darkness and there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”
(Matthew 25:30). The worst situation
you can imagine on earth would be “a walk in the park” compared with Hell.
After all, if that wasn’t so, would the Son of God have put himself through
such a dreadful experience in order to free us from something that was
reasonably acceptable? I don’t think so!
Once we begin to understand the loving relationship that
Christ wants to have with us and what he sacrificed for us, a great change
takes place. The New Testament (2 Corinthians 5:17) puts it like this: “If any man be in Christ he is a new
creature; old things are passed away, behold all things have become new”.
You see that love that Jesus showed becomes part of our life, Colossians 1:27
describes it as “Christ in you the hope
of glory”. So just as when I fell in love with Audrey my mind started to
think constantly of her, that is how it should be in our relationship with God.
Recognising how much Christ loves us we should “text” Him constantly; the
method of texting that God designed for this purpose is called “prayer” and He tells us to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians
5:17). Young people should have no problem understanding this, after all, they
never stop texting their friends. And of course just as I re-read Audrey’s
letters we should re-read God’s letters to us in the New Testament. Because it
is amazing how much we miss the first time we read something.
From friendship to
complete trust in your mate, and in
God.
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