Where's YER HOPE at ?

Agh.....Constantly......being brought back to this, the crux of the matter.
"HOPE IN God" the word tells us
(through David's Holy Spirit inspired preaching to HIMSELF)

And if we're not hoping in God, and we're truly His children.........there are many things that he will knock out of our life.......so that we are cast more and more fully onto Him as our only hope, and our source of joy and strength and peace

It is a terrifyingly wonderful thing....and it makes your heart feel all out of control, when God takes away hopes you had for things in this life......letting go has some greiving involved....but it's not Joyless by any means...........
You look to your friends, who are not perfect, who are not Christ....no matter how great they are - they fail. You look to your spouse, to the closest relationship that a human can possibly know and it doesn't take much time to realize that they are in the same boat as you are -
(brace yourself, you're married to an imperfect self-seeking by nature- sinner)
You fail them, and humanly speaking, you cannot bear the weight of expectations they might carry from walking around in our romanticized, phony, finicky, lustful, and kiddy-pool-deep-love culture.
Everything in our culture (and unfortunately in MANY ''christian" books) points us to a view of love that makes much of US......

I don't think that romance is wrong, but basing a marriage relationship off of such things is just silliness. (to quote one of my favorite pastors, Alistair Begg)

Matt 23:23
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others."

Being told 'woe to you" by God himself is.........umm.......terrifying if you let your heart wrap around the words Christ spoke.
His desire is not only for us to bring the gifts to the altar.......but to seek justice and to be merciful and faithful in all things.....demonstrating that we trust Him.

God help us keep our troth,
and measure love by blood and oath.
(snip taken from Pastor Piper's poem - "Pilate's wife")
Working it out with fear and trembling - no joke
Jen2