At the ICB Blueprint for Manhood event, I attended a marriage workshop with Elder William Pointer and Elder Leonard Battle entitled “The Blueprint for Covenant.”

I was originally asked to participate in the panel (each of us teach premarital at Christian Cultural Center) but wasn’t sure if my schedule would allow me to be present.

And, as much I would have loved to join the conversation, on this day I was ok with that.

Sitting next to my Elders talking about “life experience,” I often feel like the third guy in the Harlem Nights Shootout next to Arsenio Hall, and Miguel Nunez. Jr. who absurdly follows a blaze of machine gun bullets with a single pistol shot.

They’ll be like “Having raised seven children...”

And I’ll be like “Having been a child...”

I always joke with couples I mentor that I teach out of my “vast inexperience.” There are things I know from fifteen years of marriage. There are things I know from a lifetime of learning from other people’s examples. There are things I know from Biblical study. There are things I know from school.

But none of them are “enough,” because I can’t catch up with God.

Psalm 100, verses 4-5 (NKJV) says:

⁴ Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
And into His courts with praise.
Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.
⁵ For the Lord is good;
His mercy is everlasting,
And His truth endures to all generations.

And that is a challenging image for me: the believer taking different postures as they advance, progressively, into increasing proximity to an unchanging God. At the gates, there is gratitude. At the courts there is praise. But God is the same as He ever was, still good, still merciful, still true, and not going anywhere.

My experience is that after every verse read, and prayer prayed, we always end up at the exact same place: on the edge of the cliff, finite people crying out to an infinite God, needing Him to give us insight that exceeds our capacity, and having to take a leap of faith.

The man who confidently says “I understand women” is dangerous to me, because I’m quite sure he doesn’t.

The man who points to his ability to get a woman to do what he wants usually abusive in one way or another.

Here’s what I loved: both elders spoke to the uniqueness of our marriage and walk, even as we draw understanding from a consecrated life.

Elder Battle said “Never compare your rhythm with someone else’s.”

Elder Pointer said “Never streamline your consecration to fit into your environment.”

Sound fundamentals can guide any relationship. In premarital classes, we talk about communication, sex, and money, because these are the areas in which many relationships shipwreck.

Even then, if our understanding of covenant is two people made in the image of God, joined together by the Spirit of God to become one, then that union will be as unique as the people are.

So we also talk about issues unique to each couple. And we are also quite clear that we cannot possibly cover everything.

Teaching a 6 week premarital class for couples, and having a few counselling sessions, I always feel like a chaplain for paratroopers. I share some words, pray a prayer, hand them a pack, and then watch them jump into a high stakes experience that happens at top speed, without me.

If and when they come back, it’s generally because their chute didn’t open, or they landed in some trees, and Mr. Smith has been upside down for three months, and Mrs. Smith is wondering what to do.

Too often we abuse the good and perfect gifts we have received (and spouses can be good and perfect gifts, even while not being good and perfect people), by comparing them to greener grass images of what other people have. Why isn’t my husband like Greg? Why doesn’t my wife do what Dave’s girlfriend does? Why doesn’t this marriage contain every perk of my whitewashed memories of relationships past?

You mean the one that cut you scarred you, and made you feel, for a time, that you could never love again?

There’s a reason our exes are our exes.

And there’s a reason that the best place we can be is with God, away from a million competing voices from a thousand different worldviews, each promising to give us the way to live our best lives now.

The moment we compromise on our convictions, we are in trouble.

The moment we start living according to a trend, an argument, or a grudge we are on shaky ground.

Today I’m praying for couples that we would do the work of relationship building

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

(Photo Credit: Jasmine Carter)