{"id":21387,"date":"2021-11-13T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2021-11-13T08:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/?p=21387"},"modified":"2021-10-20T23:23:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T06:23:48","slug":"all-in-for-the-long-haul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/all-in-for-the-long-haul\/","title":{"rendered":"All In For The Long Haul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>One of the best and classiest sayings I have ever heard was,….\u201cLet us grow old gracefully together.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>There was just something of a long term commitment to it.\u00a0 <\/span>There was a continuity of stability and longevity that attached to it.\u00a0 <\/span>There was a \u201cno-turning-back\u201d aspect to a long and lasting personal relationship that was tied to it.\u00a0 <\/span>Whatever it was,…it was going to last for a very long time….sort of like \u201cTill death do us part.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Longevity always has a running mate at its side.\u00a0 <\/span>The running mate is called \u201cExperience.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Long term personal relationships with other human beings and most importantly with one\u2019s spouse have all kinds of grand and valuable experience connected with them.\u00a0 <\/span>Using a great amount of accumulated knowledge, wisdom, and experience which was gained from so many many years of living, working, sacrificing, and serving one another, marriage partners who have lived together for forty years or more seem to be able to handle almost anything…regardless of whether it was good or bad…\u00a0 <\/span>They seem to be able to weather any of life\u2019s storms or calamities and still keep both feet squarely on the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

The roots of the oldest Oak Trees grow long and deep and thereby give the trunk and limbs a strong and secure anchor point in the earth so as to enable the trees to face and survive the strongest gales and storms, as well as the fiercest floods and earthquakes, that happen to come along.\u00a0 <\/span>It is always the \u201clong-term\u201d thinkers,…the committed ones,… who always survive and are the ones who are still standing when all of the dust finally settles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almighty God created the institution of marriage to be a permanent lifetime commitment.\u00a0 <\/span>He designed it to be a lifelong blood covenant between a man and a woman.\u00a0 <\/span>It was His plan that this marital contract was to last for a life time, never to be broken or injured or destroyed.\u00a0 <\/span>Whether you knew that or even understood it at the date of your marriage makes no difference, that is what you promised God and man that you would do and live up to on that day.\u00a0 <\/span>That is what is called a permanent contractual agreement.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In most all of the serious arenas of human endeavor, whenever a leader wants to have the best possible performance by any member of his or her\u00a0<\/span>team, they will always select their best and most experienced performer.\u00a0 <\/span>In so doing, the best of all worlds is on center stage and ready to perform and win.\u00a0 <\/span>Now I say to you that knowledge and talent are great attributes, but even together they cannot effectively compete against good long term experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> The saying remains as true today as it was when coined long ago….Experience is indeed the best teacher.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Experience is best and most effectively gained when a person choses his area of greatest strengths and then develops his strengths into even stronger abilities.\u00a0 <\/span>Entertainer\/actor\/singer Frank Sinatra once stated, \u201cSometimes it is a good idea to stay at a thing.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Such is definitely the case as regards the gaining of great experience and the institution of marriage.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Persevering in a marriage creates something that nothing else can match.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A deep solid marriage takes time, lots of time, to build and mold and grow all of which requires totally committed personal effort on both parties parts.\u00a0 <\/span>You see, my friends, there is just something extra special about the love between a man and a woman that has endured that surpasses even the thrill of a newly discovered affection and infatuation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I will tell you the truth.\u00a0 <\/span>Weddings are always fun and most usually happy events, but I have developed a much greater appreciation and respect for those couples in their sixties and seventies and even some in their eighties who have seemingly melted together into \u201cone\u201d so tightly, that whenever you think about one of them,….your mind automatically begins to also think about the other one of the marriage partners.\u00a0<\/span> The two have indeed become one, just as Holy Scripture admonishes them to do. \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who says that marriage is a 50-50 proposition is on a fast track to divorce.\u00a0 <\/span>For a good marriage to grow, improve, and bloom into what God intended it to be,… it must be a 100-100\u00a0 <\/span>proposition.\u00a0 <\/span>Tarzan has to be a 100% man and Jane must become a 100% woman in order for God\u2019s plan to work the way He wants it to work.\u00a0 <\/span>Both masculinity and femininity has to be maximized and maintained at full throttle over the course of the\u00a0<\/span>marital union.\u00a0 <\/span>God intended for men,…<\/b>not mice,…to be husbands.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> The burden of proof so to speak falls on the man\u2019s broader shoulders.\u00a0 <\/span>He was designed to be the more powerful and stronger of the two parties and therefore is responsible to carry a bigger and heavier load than is the woman.\u00a0<\/span> I believe every woman alive wants nothing more than to have a life-long husband who is all-man, all the time, and who will meet and fill every need of his wife and family.\u00a0 <\/span>That is the kind of a man that a godly woman wants to \u201ccomplete.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

As an interesting side note, a study was performed on married couples in 1996 that discovered that the happiness of most couples declines somewhat for the first twenty years of marriage, but those who make it to their thirty-fifth anniversary find themselves as happy with each other as they felt when they were newlyweds.\u00a0 <\/span>Why do you think that was the finding discovered from this study?\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It seems that the romance in the early years of marriage quickly gets assaulted by many different things like, unmet expectations, duties of child-rearing, heavy financial concerns and pressures, and just plain busyness of life.\u00a0<\/span> But during this initial time, this winter season of tolerating the other\u2019s weaknesses and foolishness of the marriage years, unseen roots sink deep into the ground of life, and they ready themselves to produce good fruit that a new but untested love can never match.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

After twenty or more years of intimate support and assistance of being married and surviving the obstacle courses you experienced, a new certain intimacy begins to develop between the partners that starts bringing you closer and closer together….provided you don\u2019t destroy its chance to grow by divorce.\u00a0 <\/span>You can observe what I am saying to you right now if you will only observe elderly married couples, say in their seventies or eighties, frail creatures physically but strong in admiration, respect, and love for one another, as they live, walk, and talk together as a unit.\u00a0 <\/span>They have become \u201cone\u201d in almost every sense of the word….including how they find a table and order food in a restaurant, how the eat their lunch together, how they walk back to their automobile, and how they submit their desires one to another.\u00a0 <\/span>It is as if they have perfected the \u201cdance-of-life\u201d together…every\u00a0<\/span>step comes in complete unison.\u00a0 <\/span>They totally depend on each other and they totally need each other.\u00a0 <\/span>It is indeed a beautiful thing to observe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only desperate people flit from one relationship to another.\u00a0<\/span><\/b> These type folks are driven by their infatuations and physical desires.\u00a0 <\/span>They never really become happy with their new relationships.\u00a0 <\/span>They are never really totally committed to the other new person.\u00a0 <\/span>No matter what happens, in a year or two they are looking for someone new,…more exciting.\u00a0 <\/span>They never really find what they are so desperately looking for.\u00a0 <\/span>They burn up personal relationships every where they go.\u00a0 <\/span>It is so sad to watch.<\/span><\/p>\n

Remember, we are all sinners saved by grace.\u00a0 <\/span>No human being is perfect.\u00a0 <\/span>But when you, a sinner, learn to accept and love one particular sinner over several decades, you can slowly build an alliance and intimacy that nothing else can match.<\/span><\/p>\n

Real true love does not have to just slowly fade away like a snowman on a very warm day.\u00a0 <\/span>It can grow like an avalanche in power and force, picking up strength along the way.\u00a0 <\/span>That is exactly why God designed it to last for a life time.\u00a0 <\/span>All good and right and proper things created by God, always get better with the passage of time.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

In the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, Chapter 25, verse 1 NKJV the Holy Bible says:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/b>(1) \u00a0\u201cO Lord, You are my God.<\/b><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>I will exalt you.<\/b><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>I will praise Your name,<\/b><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>For You have done wonderful things;<\/b><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Your counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

We would all do so very well if we as married or single men and women would simply obey and follow the Word of God and His instructions as to how to live a happy, productive and prosperous life.<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes it really is a good idea to stay at a thing…..sorta like,….\u201cin sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, in good times and in bad,….till death do us part.\u201d<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Have A Great Forever!…………………<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the best and classiest sayings I have ever heard was,….\u201cLet us grow old gracefully together.\u201d\u00a0 There was just something of a long term commitment to it.\u00a0 There was a continuity of stability and longevity that attached to it.\u00a0 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21387"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21390,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21387\/revisions\/21390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davesevern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}