Daily Devotional

Lynn and I were married in 1969. In the 5½ decades since that time we have had experiences beyond counting. We have owned six houses, and lived in at least seven other apartments or rental houses. I have had eight professional jobs and a plethora of part time jobs.

Lynn has worked at least five different jobs, given birth to four children and stayed home as a mom raising our kids for 25 years. She was first the wife of a teacher and coach with all those demands, and then the wife of a pastor with many more challenges.

We have lived in at least five different cities, traveled to many states including Hawaii, and I have been to at least seven foreign countries. We have owned automobiles and trucks almost past remembering. We have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But our more than 20,000 days together would have been filled with sorrow and loss if the centerpiece of our marriage was not there—the love between us; the joy, laughter and commitment, and the oneness and romance.

As Solomon has written in many ways:

• Better is a dish of vegetables where love is, than a fatted ox served with hatred (Proverbs 15:17).
• It is better to live in a corner of a roof than a house shared with a contentious woman (Proverbs 21:9).
• If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they may be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he does not even have a proper burial, than I say, “Better the miscarriage than he.” (Ecclesiastes 6:3)

Fortunately for Lynn and me, we always loved and enjoyed each other. And when Christ came into our lives in 1976, we began to learn what love really was, and have worked at cultivating that love between us, with the help of God’s Spirit, every day.

Our relationship with God as believers is like a marriage. We can experience many things, perform every kind of good work, and give and sacrifice much; but if the core of our union with Christ is without substance, so will be our lives, and all our efforts and sacrifices. Because in the first place we are invited and called to be made alive and full in Him. We are called to a joyous and living union with Him, a oneness past any earthly experience.

Psalm 36 describes such an ongoing relationship between a believer and the Lord. If we get this right, all else will be right. If not, none of it will profit.

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house;
And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights.
For with You is the fountain of life;
In Your light we see light.  
Psalm 36:7–9, NASB

Service without love is just some form of slavery. To this we are not called. But we are called to intimacy with Christ, such as no other person has ever experienced. Our everlasting God calls us to a unique union with Him, even as He will call us each by a new name nobody knows but the two of us (Revelation 2:17).

Our Psalm 36 passage describes the everyday union to which we are first called with Him. To experience His precious lovingkindness. To take refuge in the shadow of His wings, as a child. There to drink our fill of the abundance of His house. Then we will be ready to go out to work and serve, love and give.

In our holy union with Him He gives us to drink of the river of His delights. It is flowing every day. Go to Him! For with Him is the fountain of life. Drink, drink until you are overflowing with Life. Then go forward in your marriage and your family, your work, church and calling. In His light you will see light, and will know the way.

Read: Psalm 36:5–12, Psalm 81
Sing: Fill My Cup, Lord, by Richard Blanchard

"New American Standard Bible (NASB)
Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation"