The Rhythm of UsНамуна

INTRODUCTION

We Won't Get There By Accident

Thriving together in a life we love doesn’t happen by accident. It takes intentional time, effort, and commitment to developing your unique rhythm as a couple. There are a thousand ways we could choose to live our life together. We have a thousand different voices pulling at us from a thousand different directions at all times. We all have a vision for the life we want, but until we put purpose, intentionality, and action behind that vision, we will remain stuck in the current of the world around us. We need a set of intentional rhythms to guide us toward the life and marriage we envision.

At a wedding, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once gave this beautiful advice to a young couple:

“Today you are young and very much in love and you think that your love can sustain your marriage. It can’t. Let your marriage sustain your love.”

This kind of rich, mature, thriving love that we all long for requires deep desire and intentional direction. The consistent rhythms we choose to fill our marriage and life with will either stoke the fire of that initial flame or eventually snuff it out completely. Whether we realize it or not, we already have a “rhythm of us.” The question is, where is it taking us? Do we like the couple our rhythm is shaping us to become? And if not, how do we change it?

One of my favorite Scriptures says, “Trust in the Lord and do good” (Psalm 37:3) You and I have the unbelievable opportunity to participate with God in creating a good life, a life worth living. The Hebrew word do in this verse is asa which also means “to offer,” “to bring forth,” “to prepare,” and “to make.” Keeping our hope and trust in God to do what only He can is, of course, the first step, but it can’t be where we stop. It’s not enough to just sit back and trust, waiting for the life and marriage we desire to come and land on our doorstep. We have also been entrusted to act. Commanded, in fact, to act. Trust and do.

Let’s also take a quick look at that next word in the verse: good, which is the Hebrew word tob meaning “beautiful,” “best,” “bountiful, “prosperous, and even “precious.” It’s the exact same word that God uses in Genesis to describe the completion of His creation (Genesis 1:31). Think about the implications of that: Our loving God has intentionally designed us to partner with Him in the precious creation of our lives. God, in all of His infinite goodness, gifted you and me with the power of choice and the ability to design a beautiful life. Through His great wisdom and love, He doesn’t just plop us down into a thriving life; He graciously invites our active participation.

What this means for us, in regard to our marriage, is that we are never stuck. You and I get to participate in the making of our marriage. For better or worse, the rhythms we choose to consistently fill our lives with determining the couple we become and the relationship we create. Our habits become our steering wheel.