Evangelicia

Alicia's Bible Blog

 

 

Psalm 119:7 "I will praise thee with an upright heart, when I learn thy righteous ordinances."

 

Sometimes God's law can seem confusing, or even harsh, especially to a world that does not understand it. Take the example of marriage, for one thing. We live in a culture that sees marriage as not much more than a commitment to happiness. If we feel happy with someone, our culture tells us we should be able to marry him or her, God's law does not (always). If we are unhappy in our marriage, our culture tells us we can divorce, God's law does not. In these cases, God's law can seem to be inordinately restrictive. Love is love, after all, why would God want to deny that to anyone? But when we come to truly understand God's law, then we start seeing the beauty of it.

 

Marriage is the fundamental building block of society. Strong, lasting marriages benefit the world by providing stability and structure to children and to society at large. A faithful person hopes to be happy in marriage, but understands that there will be times of struggles and unhappiness, and these are to be leaned into rather than run from. A faithful person also understands that a strong stable marriage is not created on the basis of mere attraction and "new love" happiness that will eventually fade. There has to be a shared commitment to living in God's will. None of this is easy, but the difficulties make it more valuable.

 

I recently saw a post from someone currently in OCIA who was obviously coming to realize how very beautiful and special the Church's teaching on marriage is. It was obvious from the tweet, and the discussion in the comments, that he is coming to "learn thy righteous ordinances", and this is bringing him to "praise thee with an upright heart". That is exactly what happens when we learn God's laws with understanding. Then we see that is the culture that is trying to get us to settle on something lesser, and God who is trying to give us the best of everything.