Should We Have Expectations Going Into Marriage

Going Beyond Our Expectations

 http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2008/september/going-beyond-our-expectations.html?utm_source=marriage-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=12316245&utm_content=196886453&utm_campaign=2013&start=1

A classic love song that still gets a lot of radio time goes like this:

You're the meaning in my life
You're the inspiration
You bring feeling to my life
You're the inspiration
Wanna have you near me
I wanna have you hear me sayin'
No one needs you more than I need you.

"You're the Inspiration" by Chicago is typical of the genre we call love songs. Such songs promise that our lover will bring us "meaning," "inspiration," and "feeling," and when our natural resources fail us, our lover will rescue us, so that we can belt out, "No one needs you more than I need you!"

Sort of makes the lover sound like God.

And that's the rub. Christians recognize that such songs are silly at best, idolatrous at worst, and just plain unrealistic. No human relationship can do all that.

But I'll be honest: deep inside there's a part of me that wishes it were true. And I don't think I'm alone.

We're fascinated, even in the Christian world, with books and articles that promise to help "find the love of your life," or to discern whether Mr. X or Ms. Y could possibly be our "soul mate." We live in a culture that longs for what's been called superrelationships. Who wouldn't want one?

We especially pine after the superrelationship when, a few years into marriage, we find ourselves at the breakfast table, sitting across from someone who suddenly seems like a stranger, with disheveled hair, wearing a tattered robe, bent over a newspaper, slurping coffee. We discover we don't have a soul mate but a mere roommate, and we wonder what office we go to in order to find a new one.