Happy National Hippo Day! Oh, that was yesterday.  You learn lots of fun things being married to a Special Education Teacher. Happy Valentine’s Day!  Or maybe for you this is a Happy National Singles Day!  Or maybe it’s not a happy day.  Holiday celebrations are always complicated.  In any case, as Christians, we can always support an occasion to remember to love others.

Obrei and I have been married for 3 ½ years now, so we have all this romantic love stuff figured out.  Maybe not, but we’re doing our best! We try to listen to people who have been together for a long time.  While we were engaged, we heard a lot of good marriage advice. We were in College Station surrounded by engineering culture, so it was often couched in percentages.  Here’s a summary of one nugget that stuck with me that I try to live up to: “Marriage is never 50/50. It’s 90/10, then its 20/80, then maybe you have a few days around 45/55.  Often, it feels like 75/75.  But you can’t keep score; love means someone is always doing more than their share to help.  The trick is to always try to be the person doing more and accept help when it’s your turn to receive it.”

Whether you are single, dating, (re)married, divorced, or widowed, I think that attitude holds true.  The love Jesus teaches is a love of active service for others.  Wherever we are with romance, we can lovingly serve others.  And we can let go of our pride to accept love when we need to be served.

Blessing,

Pastor Luke