Marry You

So on Sunday night I proposed to the beautiful Ellie. She did not see it coming. Even though we'd spent all weekend talking about weddings with her family, she was not expecting it as soon as we got back. Some very good friends of mine had set the room of our favorite coffee shop up beautifully with photographs of us both, yellow roses, a bottle of champagne (or cheap M&S cava), our favorite food and coffee and then more candles than you've ever seen in your life. I got down on one knee and asked a woman to spend the rest of her life with me, after a few tears and five minutes or so of euphoria it started to become quite difficult to breathe. Turns out it wasn't overwhelming excitement, but rather quite a lot of toxic smoke. I turned round to see my beautiful wool coat and rucksack full of my favorite clothes and books up in flames.

So you could say that my romantic plans weren't quite executed perfectly. My worldly possessions went up in flames as I made a commitment to spend the rest of my life trying to care for one person.

The ritual of marriage is seen as pretty outdated in our society today- but let me tell you, I fully intend to spend the rest of my life with one woman- give everything I have to making our marriage work, even when it's pretty tough.The bible uses the imagery of marriage quite often to refer to his Church. The 'bride' of Christ (the Church) will one day meet the bridegroom (Christ) and be united for eternity in a new creation. And that in my mind is a pretty good piece of symbolism for belonging to the Church, for having faith.

We need to realise sometimes that committing to God to have faith in Christ and become part of his bride is not always 'feel good', it requires sacrifice. In order to leap fully into following Christ, we have to let go of what we're holding. And sometimes we have to see things we are attached to go up in flames. Sometimes this is our stuff; I think of a rich guy in the Bible who wanted to follow Jesus but couldn't give up his possessions. Sometimes it's our ambition. Jesus even tells us that following him will result in people we love turning against us.

I think too often we over glamorize commitment. I know full well that I will have to give up some of my ambition, some of my money, some of my stuff in order to love Ellie fully and be fully committed to her. I know that sometimes she will do my head in, sometimes I will feel like giving it up. But that's not the point. The point of marriage isn't that I find someone who can make me euphoric for the next sixty years, but I do believe that the sacrifice I make to commit to her will be worth it. And it's the same with faith. We might paint 'conversion' as a glorious thing, and rightly so- but there is a cost of faith, there is a cost of belonging to the Church. Jesus says:

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

I am challenged by those words. Ultimately I know that Jesus is more trustworthy than Ellie is. I know that commitment to him is worth it. But it means letting go of things, letting go of my self centered attitude. Interestingly Jesus claims the two most important things you can do with your life is to "Love God" and "Love others", that is a total reversal of the strongest instruction of culture: "Love yourself". Faith means taking my eyes off myself, letting go of what I'm holding and committing to someone who is worth placing trust in.

I don't pretend that is easy. I have to daily struggle to do that. In a strange way I'm kind of glad my stuff went up in flames, as irritating as it was, it gave me a sense of perspective. Compared to spending the rest of my life with Ellie, a wool coat is nothing. Compared to being a part of the Bride of Christ for eternity, what I have in my hands is nothing.