The Vow, Marriage and Human relationship….

I recently went to see a new film called The Vow, now this blog isn’t about the film and I’m not going to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it but one thing stuck out to me in one particular scene. On speaking about a tough time in their marriage one of the characters says this “I choose to stay with him because of all the things he did right, not because of the one thing he did wrong… I choose to forgive him” My instant thought was Amen to that! I really thought that was a profound thing to say and a strong message about marriage that I think this society needs to take away with them…..as this is what sometime marriage can be about, we need to be constantly forgiving towards one another whether it be big or small. Now this doesn’t mean we should be doormats for to be walked all over but it’s an important lesson. Now I don’t know much about marriage, simply because I’m not married but I know that in any relationship grace is important as this is what I have learnt from Jesus’ teaching and what he has done for me and as a Christian. It’s also what I try and live out as well as other Christian’s I know.

I also recently read and interesting quote by Immanuel Kant “The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state (status naturalis); the natural state is one of war… A state of peace, therefore, must be established”.  Now I’m not sure how relevant that this is but I would agree that just as relationship between states needs to be worked on, so does human relationship; whether it be in marriage or just in the way we interact with the people we see every day. I would agree with this, we are can naturally be selfish people albeit generally caring towards the people around us but at the roots selfish… I know I am!

But if we’re not natural at forming good relationships then how do we learn? Partly through trial and error, maybe through the example of our parents and good friends; and these are important. However I would argue (in agreement with the bible) that Jesus gave us the perfect example of how we should treat one another and how we should act selflessly towards one another. And that’s exactly what Jesus did for us he acted selflessly so that we could have relationship with God our father in heaven. In a nutshell he came to the earth he created, fully God and fully Human; “He came not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as ransom for many” (Matthew 20v 28). Jesus selflessly gave his life for us so that we could have relationship with God he spent his life on earth showing us how we should live but more importantly revealing that we could have perfect relationship with God through the forgiveness of our sins through sheading his blood for us, defeating death and rising three days later! He showed us grace and it is only by grace that we our saved.

It’s also how we should be in our relationships with others, graceful and loving! From the top of my head I can think of two occasions where Jesus teaches us this so clearly in Matthew 22v 34-40 and Matthew 19 v 16-20. In both of these parables Jesus talks about Loving our neighbour… he talks about putting other before ourselves!

    

Hope this all makes sense… If not just comment and I’ll try and make sense of what doesn’t =D

Peace out!