HIS REST OF THE STORY

It's difficult to through life with only half the story. Half the instruction will not make a half-way decent swing set. Half a novel will leave you  dissatisfied. Were there to be some horrible printing calamity and this article be left with only every other word, you probably confused death. With only half a story, you always will find yourself wanting more, wondering what you are missing. And this is too often the cause if marital infidelity. When it comes to our relations with our better halves, we too often have the wrong half of the story.

       God did not say, 

         "I will make a friend or 

            a toy suitable for him."

  Why did you get married? Try to answer honestly. What was the goal? Many get married because that's Supposed to be the next chapter in the book, it is expected. Some get married because they are afraid of being lonely. And then there are those who get

Married because they think it will make them happy. They think that this other person must be the other half that they'll be complete. 

  While my own marriage came at a reasonable

Approximation of the appropriate time i was 27 that i get married, and no doubt my mother was rather for Me to get to that chapter. While i would surely be Lonely if i did not have my dear wife, and while she is Indeed a joy in my life and in many ways completes me (at least she has a number of strenghts that Counteract a number of my weakness), in my better

Moments I know that those are not at all the reasons I did the right thing in marrying isabelita. To understand Why I did the right thing, I do not check my hsppiness Level but the Word of God. While half the story of 

marriage may well be that it is a joyful thing for me, the real half comes at the begining, in understanding the Marriage of Adam and Eve. Notice that when God Notices that Adam is alone, when He affirms that it is not good  for Adam to be alone, He does not then create Eve to solve his loneliness or to be a source of

happiness for him. God  did  not say, "I will  make a friend or a toy suitable for him." Instead He said, i Will make a helper suitable for him"' (NIV). The wife is to be a help mate for the husband, a co-laborer in the great task of exercising dominion over God's creation. It was true then and it is true now. 

Marriage is more work than fun of course, work can be fun. . .

  That part of the story doesn't changed. Thus, i

should See my marriage as a means toward exercising Dominion, which is avery different thing than the emotional equivalent of a trip to Disney World. To put it more plainly, marriage is more work than fun of course, work can be fun as well, but if we expect It to be fun, if we believe that we are due all the emotional goodies, if we think that the principle 

Function of our spouse is to meet our felt needs, we are prime candidates for adultery. If we start with the assumption that we have a right to be happy, to have fun, then we won't let little things like solemn vows stay in our way.

  You hear it all the time in the lame justifications Men and women gives for their infidelities: "He  just wasn't any fun any more," "she wasn't supportive of Me," "He abandoned me emotionally," "she made me feel like aman again." It's a rare bird indeed who would have the pluck to excuse his sin by saying, "She no longer enabled me to exercise dominion over God's creation."

  Perhaps the shortest, clearest way to see the 

Difference between a cultural and a biblical view of marriage is to see that the former sees marriage as away to be served, the latter as an arena in which to serve. And that's not half the story; it's the whole thing.

  Consider Apollos and the disciple of John. We are told in Acts 18 that Apollos was a great servant of the Lord, but one who had not  experience the blessing if covenant baptism. In chapter 19 we are introduced to a group of John's disciples who likewise had not yet experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Yet in both cases the men had proven themselves faithful. They did not enter into the covenant marriage between Christ and His church

because they were sold on a list of benefits that would accrue to them. They didn't know the whole story, but they knew the important half. They knew

that this Jesus was worth serving. They knew that their job was to participate in His work of exercising dominion, of bringing all things into subjection, of Building His kingdom, for His glory. Having done this, 

  Having come under his covenantal covering, 

They were then overjoyed to learn that there is more. What is more is not an extra jolt of happiness, but Empowerment to serve with Him in His labor, to Become helpers suitable for Him. And therein lay their joy.

  How does this speak to our marriage  to our

Marriages? It's not that we score high on some sort of compability test, but that we are working together to build the kingdom. There is your excitement. There Is your romance , to go off together slaying dragons, even if we slay dragons through the mundane work, the overcoming of thorns and thistles that is changing diapers and mowing the lawn. Just as with the whole of the Christian life, we find that when we give up everything, when we lay down our lives, when we pick up our crosses, we have found everything, that our lives

have been saved, and that His burden is light. In short for servants of the king, the joy comes in the service, in faithful service.