Relationship Goalsنموونە

Covenant Keeping

From Jon, married to Mandi for over 17 years

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. An atheist and a casual Christian walk into a church … to get married. 

Ah, yes. The fairy-tale romance. Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Boy and girl cheat on each other. God is ignored. Nine years after they declared before God and family, “’Til death do us part,” it’s clear to both of them that they aren’t going to make it. That was Mandi and me. 

But God had other plans for us. Mandi started attending our church, Life.Church, and it wasn’t long before I joined her. That’s when our lives were quite literally changed forever. 

We decided that if God was who He said He was, He could make our marriage work. It did take work. There were hard conversations, confessions, and tears. But we were reminded through God’s Word that “the two had become one.” 

We might not have taken our vows seriously when we married, but God did. We were reminded through 1 Timothy to “Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses.” So, we kept fighting and held tightly to Jesus, trusting Him to restore our marriage. It hasn’t been easy, and to reference day one of this Bible Plan, there was a whole lot of “in-between.”

God didn’t just make our marriage work. He made it thrive. So much so that on July 15, 2011, 10 years after we declared our vows to a God we didn’t really know, we had the honor of renewing our vows to the living God who revealed His love for us, redeemed us, and was pleased with our marriage.

All relationships, and definitely all marriages, will face challenges. Money comes and goes. Family gets sick. Careers and parenting get hard. But God remains the same—yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Regardless of where you find yourself today, trust in God to honor His covenant with you and to support your covenant with your spouse. He will always remain faithful.

Pray: Jesus, thank You for having a plan for our lives. Thank You that in times when we’ve lost hope, You haven’t. Holy Spirit, give us the strength to honor the covenants we made.