Want a Healthy Marriage? Read the Song of Solomon (with your spouse)

The Song of Solomon is one of those books in the bible that, for many of us who grew up in church, well, we look at it as awkward. It’s like we go, “what do we do with that?” And I think it is because of that very question (and a few others) that the church should spend a consistent amount of time teaching from it each year.

My Take On Resolutions

For years I made a conscious effort to workout at a local gym wherever I lived. I felt that taking care of one’s body was one of the most important parts of a person life. With that in mind, I would always get frustrated around this time of year (January). I would show up at my local gym, and it was always more crowded than usual. But I didn’t have to wait too long for the crowds to dwindle. Usually around the end of February, first of March I would only see the regulars again. This observation over time is one of many that made me decide to not do New Year’s Resolutions. I could only see people that failed at them, and since I didn’t want to be a failure, I wouldn’t make any resolutions. It wasn’t until later that learned how important it was to set goals for myself.

 

Transactional Relationships

I was hanging out with some friends this weekend, when we started talking about relationships. One of them made the comment, “but I have invested so much into this relationship.” As you can imagine, this got me thinking….

When I hear phrases such as this, it makes me think that some consider relationships to be somewhat like a transaction. In other words, “if I put this much into it, then I should expect this kind of return.” Relationships do not work that way. That’s why love is so weird. It doesn’t follow basic Newtonian physics where you can PREDICT through various inputs, variables, and constants what it is going to do. This is why there are things like, “love at first sight, I fell head over heels for him, she makes me feel tingly all over.” It’s the same for why some would break laws for their spouses, while others won’t lift a finger for theirs. Relationships, and more specifically, marriages, are not transactions. Yes, you have to put effort into them. Yes, there are expectations, but there is no relationship between “I expect this kind of interaction, because I put this much work into it.” Think about it: How do you put a value on effort?

When we look at relationships from a transactional stand point, the other person will inevitably, disappoint us. It doesn’t matter how awesome they are, how drop dead gorgeous they are, or how rich they are. Because as long as we have a concept that “I have put X amount of time, energy, LIFE into this, therefore I deserve Y”, then we will never ever be fully satisfied.

However, when we look at a relationship from the stand point of both put into “this” to make it work, with God at the helm, then the relationship will progress in a positive manner. It won’t be perfect, as nothing is perfect but God, however, it will look more like what God intended. It will be beautiful in all respects. I guess you could say that true love is most apparent when there are fewer transactions within the relationship.

If you are in a relationship, do you do certain things so that you get certain things?